DBQ B‑The
Civil Rights Movement Name______________________________
History 8
2003
Question: The Civil Rights
movement aimed to convince white Americans to support the cause of equal rights
for African Americans by abolishing segregation and guaranteeing the right to
vote. What themes did the champions of
civil rights use in their appeal and why were they successful?
Brown v. Board
of Education of
We come then to the question presented; Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the
basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors
may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational
opportunities? We believe that it does….
Segregation of
white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the
colored children. The impact is greater
when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is
usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro
group. A sense of inferiority affects
the motivation of a child to learn.
Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to
[retard] the education and mental development of negro
children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a
racial[ly] integrated school system….
We conclude
that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has
no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal….
Among the actions of the students in founding the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960 was the adoption of a
statement of purpose, drafted by divinity student James Lawson,
that expressed their philosophy:
We affirm the
philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our
purpose, the presupposition of our faith, and the manner of our action. Nonviolence as it grows from Judaic-Christian
tradition seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents the
crucial first step toward such a society….
Love is the
central motif of nonviolence. Love is
the force by which God binds man to Himself and man to
man. Such love goes to the extreme; it
remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to inflict
suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while
persisting in love.
By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, nonviolence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to national prominence
in 1955 as the leader of a boycott of the city-owned bus line in protest of its
discrimination against African-American riders. From this time on, until he was
murdered in 1968, Dr. King remained the most prominent African-American civil
rights leader. King’s leadership of demonstrations and open defiance of racist
laws led police to arrest him a number of times. While in the
My dear Fellow
Clergymen,
While confined
here in the
We know through painful
experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I
have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was “well timed,” according
to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of
segregation. For years now I have heard
the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of
every Negro with a piercing familiarity.
This “wait” has almost always meant “never….” We must come to see with the distinguished
jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for
our constitutional and God-given rights.
The nations of
I guess it is
easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say
wait. But when you have seen vicious
mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers
at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and
even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast
majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an air-tight cage
of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your
tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your
six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has
just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes
when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored
children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her
little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by
unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to
concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy,
why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross
country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the
uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when
you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and
“colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes
“boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your
wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are
harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living
constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and
plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a
degenerating sense of “nobodiness”-then you will
understand why we find it difficult to wait.
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no
longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience
the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our
legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
Freedom
marches, freedom rides, sit‑ins, and other episodes of the Civil Rights
movement were usually accompanied by songs.
Many of these songs dated back to slavery days, and many were
adaptations of spiritual hymns. Here are
excerpts from two of these songs:
WE SHALL OVERCOME
We shall
overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall
overcome some day.
Oh, deep in my
heart, I do believe,
We shall
overcome some day.
The Lord will
see us through, the Lord will see us through,
The Lord will
see us through today.
Oh, deep in my
heart, I do believe.
We shall
overcome some day.
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE
Paul and
Silas, bound in jail,
Had no money for to go their bail.
Chorus:
Keep your eyes
on the prize,
Hold on, hold
on,
Hold on, hold
on,
Keep your eyes
on the prize,
Hold on, hold
on.
Paul and Silas
began to shout,
The jail door
opened and they walked out
We’re gonna
ride for civil rights,
We’re gonna
ride, both black and white.
We’ve met jail
and violence too,
But God’s love has seen us through.
From 1960 to 1964, sit-ins spread
across the South attempting to desegregate public accommodations. Chain stores that refused to serve blacks at
lunch counters were picketed and boycotted in the North. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell was one of
the country’s most prominent black politicians, representing
Reporter: You are advocating that Negroes in
Congressman Powell: Oh no. I’m advocating that American citizens interested in democracy not shop in these stores.
In June of 1963, two African‑American students
were refused admission to the
This is not a sectional
issue. Difficulties over segregation and
discrimination exist in every city; in every State of the
We are
confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is
as clear as the American Constitution.
The heart of
the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal
opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to
be treated. If an American, because his
skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot
send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for
the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full
and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have
the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the
counsels of patience and delay?
One hundred
years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their
heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free.
They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and
economic oppression. And this Nation,
for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its
citizens are free.
We preach
freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at
home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other
that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no
second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no
ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time
has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in
The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South. Where legal remedies are not at hand, redress is sought in the streets; in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
In August 1963, over 200,000 people met in
In a sense we have come to
our nation’s capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration of
It is obvious
today that
It would be
fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate
the determination of the Negro. This
sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a
beginning. Those who hope that the Negro
needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if
the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in
I say to you
today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the
moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American
dream.
I have a dream
that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its
creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal.”
I have a dream
that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character….
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
In the winter of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson asked
Congress to pass a Voting Rights Act. On
the evening of March 15, 1965, he spoke to a joint session of Congress (and to
the nation on television) to seek support for this act. These excerpts come
from that speech:
… the last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after eight long months of debate. And when that bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated.
This time, on
this issue, there must be no delay, or no hesitation or no compromise with our
purpose.
We cannot, we
must not refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every
election that he may desire to participate in.
And we ought not, we must not wait another
eight months before we get a bill. We
have already waited a hundred years and more and the time for waiting is gone….
But even if we pass this
bill, the battle will not be over. What
happened in
Their cause
must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who
must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.
The time of
justice has now come. I tell you that I
believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that
it should come. And when it does, I
think that day will brighten the lives of every American....
The real hero
of this struggle is the American Negro.
His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk
his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call
attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir
reform. He has called upon us to make
good the promise of
Jeffrey Stroebel, The
Adapted from: Kenneth Hilton. Document‑Based
Assessment Activities for
