Symbolic Realignment

Definition:

Symbolic realignment is when a movement fundamentally shifts its key vocabulary, symbols or images, so as to clearly emulate the movement's changes in goals and ideals.

Example:

One example is the creation of the acronym "LGBT", which signified the emergence of a real coalition between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people rather than a collection of individual movements.

Passages:

From the Stewart reading:

"Carmichael created a symbolic realignment within the movement by replacing words such as Negro, Negro people, ghetto, segregation and integration with black, black masses, colony, colonialism and liberation that altered how audiences saw the ghettoes of large American cities and American institutions and linked the civil rights movement with the African movements for independence from colonial powers." (page 496)

"Carmichael understood the importance and power of words, that whoever controls language controls the world." (page 496)