Diffusions of Innovations and Ideas

Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations (and Ideas) Theory has been used to justify and explain the progression and rate of acceptance of theories, ideas, innovations, technologies, and so much more. This theory gives a visual representation of how certain demographics and people embrace the introduction of new concepts and the practice of those concepts. 

Within this theory, there are five categories of people: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Innovators are the ones who innovate, cultivate, and introduce ideas. Early adopters are those who jump on the bandwagon immediately, embracing the idea very quickly. The early majority deals with the first major wave of people who accept the idea. This group's acceptance tends to take a longer time than the innovators and early adopters.

The late majority refers to the wave of people that adopts the idea at a later time than the average person and embraces the new idea with slight skepticism and hesitation. And laggards are those who are the very last to accept the idea or innovation and do so with such reluctance because they do not necessarily like change and are comfortable in current tradition. Laggards can even be the small minority who refuse to accept new ideas and innovative advances (the non-conformers).

With this model, I endeavor to explain the gradual rate of acceptance of an idea instead of innovation, the idea being the abolition of Black slaves in America. The mass acceptance of this "idea" was a long and winding road and this "road" can be demonstrated in the following model I graphed. 

So, the pioneers of the abolition movement for African Americans were abolitionists such as Benjamin Lay, Olaudah Equiano, Anthony Benezet, Elizabeth Freeman, Benjamin Rush, and Moses Brown. These individuals were probably the earliest American abolitionists. Many do not know about these individuals because in many cases, those who make something popular are remembered and acknowledged more than those who were the "true pioneers." 

             

The early adopters were Black slaves, free Blacks in the North, and abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman. These individuals helped spark the fire of the abolition movement. These individuals believed that slavery was wrong and had no doubt in their minds about their support for this movement, although it was frowned upon at the time. They were early adopters of abolition because of their knowledge and realization of the immoral nature of slavery and its violation of the inherent nature of America's concept of freedom and liberty. 

           

The early majority consisted of Christians, religious folks, and poor and middle-class white citizens of the South and North who didn't have enough money to own slaves. Although some Christians used the Bible to justify slavery, many Christians accepted the abolitionist movement because they knew  and lived by principles of love and treating one another with kindness and respect explicitly stated in the Bible. The lower and middle-class citizens were part of the early majority because there was no connection, correlation, or benefit from slavery on their part. 

The late majority is comprised of Northerners who had a stake in and profited from slavery, Blacks who owned slaves because of monetary and economic status, and individuals who viewed slavery as a "necessary evil." These individuals were reluctant to accept the ideas and progression of the anti-slavery movement. These people were guided by their pockets and deemed what they gained from this exploitation more important than the freedom of individuals. They also were hesitant because they were used to customs and long-standing traditions of slaveholding and slave labor.

The laggards were those adamant, wealthy slaveowners, slavemasters, and  plantation owners of the South who saw nothing wrong with slavery and "fought til the death" to keep it in the colonies. These were the ones who tried to succeed the union because of their desire for slavery, thus sparking the American Civil War of 1861. These laggards were the "pissed off angry white people" that Professor Smith talks about. When slavery was eventually abolished by the 13th Amendment, I could imagine that these people were so mad that they could no longer own slaves and profit off of their intense labor. The 13th Amendment sort of forced them to adopt and accept the realities of abolition and how it would change America forever, versus them becoming laggards naturally of their own free will.

This progression in abolition led to other movements for the equal treatment and recognition of Blacks in America. This development was positive overall. But if I had to be critical, I could say that a negative effect of this long developmental process of the abolition of slavery is that many have created a false sense of duty to correct the injustices of the past. Unbeknownst to them, they are creating injustices in the present by overcorrecting. People are holding on to the past and have not truly learned from it. They need to move on and implement the lessons learned from the pioneers, adopters, the majority, and even the laggards. Because as my high school teacher always says, "It's best not to bring up old mess. Focus on the future." But all in all, the initial good of this movement outweighs the current negative effects carried out through society.