DBQ-The Civil Rights Movement Name______________________________ History 8 2012

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?

Document 1

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954):

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….

Document 2 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.

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Document 3 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 Birmingham, Alabama, jail in the spring of 1963, King wrote an eloquent defense of his belief in nonviolent resistance. This excerpt comes from that essay: My dear Fellow Clergymen, While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas.... But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement.... 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 Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. 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

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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.

Document 4

Document 5 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.

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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.

Document 6

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 Harlem from 1944 to 1970. A reporter interviewed him in regard to the boycott of stores in New York City:

Reporter: You are advocating that Negroes in New York stay out of these national chain stores? Congressman Powell: Oh no. I’m advocating that American citizens interested in democracy not shop in these stores.

Document 7 In June of 1963, two African-American students were refused admission to the University of Alabama. A federal court ruled that they should be allowed to enroll in the university, but Governor George C. Wallace openly resisted the court order. President Kennedy sent U.S. marshals and troops to see that the law was enforced. This tense confrontation threatened to break out in violence, and to try to calm the situation, President Kennedy spoke to the nation on television. This excerpt comes from that speech:

This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city; in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue…. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts

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than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. 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 Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. 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.

Document 8 In August 1963, over 200,000 people met in Washington, D.C., to speak out for civil rights and for political and economic opportunities for African Americans. That year marked the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. To commemorate this, a huge rally was held in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that Dr. King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Here are some excerpts from that speech:

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 Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has

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given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice…. 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 America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges…. 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!”

Document 9 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.

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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 Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. 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 America. And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy?

Jeffrey Stroebel and Tony Young, The Sycamore School, 2002 revised 2006, 2009. Adapted from: Kenneth Hilton. Document-Based Assessment Activities for U.S. History Classes Portland, Me: J Weston Walch, 1999.