The term SMO entered literature through the work of Mayer N. Zald and Roberta Ash (Zald, Mayer N. and Roberta Ash, Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay and Change.
The civil rights movement was a social movement composed of specific social movement organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
[2] These are just three SMOs amongst the hundreds of organizations that helped shape the civil rights movement.
[3] Thus, the social movement is the general push toward veganism (an effort with numerous motivations) and PETA is only a single SMO working within the broader social movement.
[4] The Ku Klux Klan is yet another SMO – part of the white supremacist movement.