King: Well, I certainly appreciate your returning the call ...



June Freifelder

Social Studies Method: Spring 2015

May 4th, 2015

Dr. Abby Reisman

Final Mini-Unit: Lyndon B. Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement

Part 1: Rationale

This topic takes an in-depth look at major American Civil Rights’ legislation in the 1960s, specifically examining President Lyndon B. Johnson’s role in getting this legislation signed into law during his presidency. This legislation mandated that African Americans be granted the equal civil rights which they had been denied for years through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 replaced a weaker version of the bill in 1957, enacted under President John F. Kennedy. The new Civil Rights Act looked to ban racial discrimination in public areas as well as guarantee equal job opportunities. Subsequently, the Voting Rights Act in 1965 ensured all citizens the right to vote, and both acts added legal protections to these social and political developments. These two pieces of legislation were the products of massive organized advocacy groups which later became known as the Civil Rights Movement. While the push for legal Civil Rights began decades before the 1960s, this decade is often seen as the climax of the Civil Rights Movement marked by mass acts of non-violent protests, marches, the Freedom Rides, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” and Malcolm X’s “Ballot or Bullet” speeches before the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. As landmark legislation not only in African American history, but also in American history, it is important to recognize and understand the allies working with and the forces working against the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. It is important for us to acknowledge those who supported this radical push in American history. It is equally as important for us to understand the complexity of the barriers impeding process or stagnating the goals of the Civil Rights Movement in order to appreciate how these barriers were eventually overcome. While this topic is always extremely pertinent in any American history class, the 2015 release of the film Selma sparked new academic controversy over the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Selma’s release has caused people to debate over whether or not President Lyndon B. Johnson’s actions are accurately portrayed in the film. In Selma, President Johnson is depicted in multiple scenes as a reluctant supporter of the Voting Rights Act and the marches from Selma to Montgomery. This representation mainly occurs through exchanges with Martin Luther King, and the head of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover. In Selma, President Johnson looks to make the War of Poverty the focus of his efforts, and is depicted as being wary of Martin Luther King Jr., having the FBI spy on black Civil Rights leaders. Critics of the film include Joseph A. Califano Jr., once a domestic aid for President Johnson. Califano argues that Selma’s depiction of Johnson is far from reality, and that Johnson was a major advocate in pushing Civil Rights legislation to the forefront of the country’s agenda (NYTimes, December 31st, 2014). Califano writes that “in fact, Selma was LBJ’s idea, he consider the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, he viewed King as essential partner in getting it enacted”.

Other supporters of the film’s portrayal point to a recorded phone conversation between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson on January 1965, claiming that Johnson’s pushes Voting Rights for African Americans behind Medicaid, Education, and the War on Poverty in his national agenda. Johnson told King that he would address the issue of qualification of voters after those bills were passed, and it was only events heightened in Selma that Johnson altered his timetable (Davidson, 2015). After Bloody Sunday, the White House also waited several days to make an official statement and respond to federal protection requests. Selma’s director, Ava DuVernay also directly attacked Califano’s claim that Selma was Johnson’s idea “jaw dropping and offensive to the black citizens who made it so” and extending the debate between the two parties further (Schuessler, 2014).

In preparing this lesson, I much more insight into the complexities of getting legislation enacted. Similarly to the SHEG Inquiry of the March on Washington, the motivations and methods of the various sides in the Civil Rights Movement are by no means uniform, even when the goal of equality is similar. When researching for this lesson, I found that Lyndon B. Johnson’s motivations were more complex than I originally realized. Prior to becoming president as a Democrat from Texas, Johnson aligned himself with the southern bloc, voting against Civil Rights legislation as a means of political advancement during his two decades in Congress. As Vice President for John F. Kennedy, however, Johnson was one of the primary advocates in the cabinet for pushing Civil Rights legislation. After taking office after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson continued his support for this legislation as just one piece of his idea of building a “Great Society” in America where Johnson looked to improve racial injustice, education, health, transportation, and poverty. Finally, I learned that 1964 was a Presidential election year, and Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act may have rested to some extent on gaining the political support of African Americans.

This lesson could be taught in either an eleventh grade American History or an African American history class. In an American History class, I would foresee the lesson being taught chronologically, after lessons about the Brown v. Board, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Country Bus Boycott, and the March on Washington. For this lesson in particular, I think it’s vital for students to understand the prolonged struggle to the pass this legislation and to appreciate the effort it took to create this change in America. In a tenth grade African American history class, I could see this lesson being taught as part of a thematic unit on the Civil Rights Movement, where I would also present material in a chronological way. Taking the time to teach the lead-up to the passage of this legislation would be equally as important an African American history class as it would in the American History class.

The central historical question for this lesson is: Was LBJ a Civil Rights leader or a reluctant follower? LBJ is often considered a Civil Rights advocate since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act occurred during his presidency. This lesson helps to show that the story is not so straightforward. In this lesson, students understand that LBJ was strategic politican with his support of African American rights leading up to and during his presidency. While he may have been morally motivated, students will understand that LBJ was certainly politically motivated in his support of the Civil Rights Movement as he looked to gain more voters in the election of 1964. The documents also show the difference in how LBJ display his support in public versus a more private setting. Overall, from this lesson, students will gain a deeper understanding of LBJ as an individual with his own set of specific motivations and goals, which he acted on. Students will understand why the atmosphere of the mid-1960s allowed these two pieces of legislation to be passed when they were rather than earlier or later. Finally, students will understand the barriers or stagnating factors involved in the Civil Rights Movement and hopefully develop an appreciation for the people who worked to overcome these forces, and continue to do so today.

Going into this unit on the Civil Rights Movement, I would expect most students to have familiarity with famous leaders of the Movement such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. These names and a few of the major, well-known events frequently associated with them in the American story would be the background knowledge that I would expect to build off of them. In the School District of Philadelphia, students may have more background knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement if they were first in an African American history class and beginning this unit in an American history class. Regardless, I don’t think many students will walk into the room with knowledge of specific forces working against the Civil Rights Movement or specifics about legislation that was passed as a result of it. I would like to complicate their [theoretical] idea that the Movement was straightforward with a singular vision. I also would not expect my students have prior knowledge of Lyndon B. Johnson and his plan for a “Great Society.” I think this unit and specific lesson will be challenging to students because there are many perspectives to take into account and the goals of different people change over time, which make understanding context particularly important. Beginning the lesson with clips from Selma may also add a level of challenge for me and my students to get away from what they learn from the film and to try to dig into the documents. To make sure students are really “getting it” I will be sure to discuss the clips of Selma in terms of how the film portrays LBJ and his role in the Civil Rights Movement in order to set up a controversial space for students to enter in the SAC before reading any documents or introducing a historical question at all. As we go, I will use the guided questions to check for my students understanding of the documents, the specific evidence they choose to defend their side, and monitor the discussions between the group members. There will also be a chance for students to discuss the conclusions they reached with the whole to encourage a high-level of understanding and space to work out confusion before an individual writing component to conclude the lesson and more formally assess students.

From this mini-unit, I want students to understand that people’s motivations not only change over time, but can effect their overall goals depending on the context of the situation they’re in. Specifically, Lyndon B. Johnson’s stance on civil rights changed as he tried to acquire more political power in the upcoming election of 1964, but Johnson seemingly put the civil rights issues on the backburner in private when Martin Luther King Jr. looking for his support towards African American voting rights. For this unit, I would like my students to work on the skill of argumentative writing by using evidence from historical documents to support their argument. To develop this specific skill, students will respond in agreement or disagreement to Joseph A. Califano’s article in the Washington Post using historical evidence that they have isolated from documents used in the Structured Academic Controversy from this same unit.

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement Lesson Plans

Materials:

• 2 video clips from Selma (2014)

• Civil Rights Movement Powerpoint

• Copies of Civil Rights Timeline

• Copies of SAC packet for LBJ and the Civil Rights Movement (Documents A-D, directions, guiding questions, SAC evidence on both sides, and consensus)

• Group discussion questions

• Examples of letters from the New York Times and the New Yorker as models

• Modified copies of Joseph A. Califando’s article in the Washington Post

• Sample template for letter and writing assignment instructions with rubric

Day 1: Introduction to Topic

Opener: We have been exploring the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s and 1950s over the past few weeks, and for the next three days we will narrow our focus to the early 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement ignites and its leaders successfully get landmark legislation protecting the rights of African Americans passed. Over the course of the next three days, we will look specifically at Lyndon B. Johnson, who was president at the time, and we will examine together his role in the Civil Rights Movement. A film called Selma recently was released which is centered on the period of time we will be discussing. Some people, like Dr. Martin Luther King, will be very familiar to you in these two clips, and other people or events might not be as much. While watching these clips, keep in mind how the director Ava DuVernay is portraying King and President Johnson (who I will point out to you).

• (20 minutes) Watch and discuss two clips from Ava DuVernay’s Selma [see SLIDE 2 and SLIDE 3 for film preview and oval office scene]

o Pose the questions: How is MLK depicted in the two clips from Selma? How is LBJ depicted in the two clips from Selma?

o SLIDE 4: brief background on President Johnson’s career and his Great Society

o SLIDE 5: Have students jot down what they already know about the Civil Rights Movement (names, places, events, etc.) from class or from their own background knowlede, and share out to make a class list

• (10 minutes) Pass out timelines: Have students read aloud the timeline of the Civil Rights Movement together in small groups

o Students should highlight the points on the timeline that they have some familiarity with and circle parts of the timeline in which they have no familiarity

• (20 minutes) Return to powerpoint, students will be asked to add new information to their timeline from the powerpoint

o SLIDE 6: Introduce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, background and purpose

o SLIDE 7: Presidential Election 1964, electoral map. Give brief background on Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate.

▪ What do you notice about the few states that LBJ lost to Barry Goldwater?

o SLIDE 9: Shows MLK leading a peaceful march from Selma to Alabama

▪ How do you think the police will react to this peaceful protest? Why?

o SLIDE 10: Shows civil rights marchers in Selma being beaten by the Alabama police

▪ How do you think the governemnt will react to this violence? Why?

o SLIDE 11: Shows LBJ signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965

▪ After the powerpoint and from examing the timeline, what do you notice about civil rights legislation during LBJ’s term? There are A LOT of big changes right? So, knowing that and before looking at any historical documents, do you think that Selma is an accurate reflection of how LBJ felt about civil rights?

▪ Students will write down their predictions in their journals and share out

Since its release in 2014, the film Selma has ignited a major historical debate, decades after the Civil Rights Movement. Johnson is depicted as a reluctant supporter and even spies on MLK in the film Selma. He looks to focus his efforts on other parts of the Great Society. Critics of the film belief that this depiction does not do LBJ justice and that LBJ was a major advocate and leader of the Civil Rights Movement. Tomorrow we will enter into this historical debate, and look at our Central Historical Question in depth through four documents from the time…

• (10 minutes) Students will be introduced to the Central Historical Question: Was LBJ a Civil Rights leader or a reluctant follower?

o Students will be given Documents A-D. Before reading the documents, students will be asked to take note of the dates each document was produced, and annotate their timelines by marking where the specific documents fall.

Day 2: Structured Academic Controversy

Opener: Yesterday, we discussed Lyndon B. Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement. We remember that landmark civil rights legislation was passed during LBJ’s presidency. We also remember that the movie Selma portrays LBJ negatively in the push for African American voting rights. Today, we are going to focus on the CHQ we introduced at the end of yesterday: Was LBJ a Civil Rights leader or a reluctant follower through a Structured Academic Controversy where we will examine both sides of the argument closely in small groups before reaching a consensus.

• (30 minutes) Students will be put into groups of four and assigned one side of the CHQ to teams of two

o Students will work in pairs to read and answer guided questions

▪ Document A: LBJ’s State of the Union Address

▪ Document B: Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” Speech

▪ Document C: Photograph of Johnson Signing the Civil Rights Act

▪ Document D: Phone Conversation between MLK and LBJ

o After answering the guided questions, students will be asked to prepare their side of the argument by finding four pieces of evidence to support their side and writing it down

• (10 minutes) Team A will present their findings from the day before as Team B writes down the arguments and repeats them back to Team A.

• (10 minutes) Team B will present their findings from the day before as Team B writes down the argumetns and repeats them back to Team B.

• (10 minutes) The groups of four try to develop and write a concensus altogether.

Close: we will discuss your small-group concensus as a whole class tomorrow to see what other conclusions your classmates came up with for answer the Central Historical Question from the same evidence in the documents.

Day 3: Whole-Group Discussion and Argumentative Writing

Opener: we ended yesterday with coming to a consensus within our groups about whether or not LBJ was a civil rights leader or a reluctant follower. I’m curious to see what different groups came up with and if we can reach any group conclusions about Lyndon B. Johnson…

• (15 minutes) Class regroups for whole-class discussion of the Structured Academic Controversy

Today, using our conclusions from the LBJ SAC, we are going to practice the skill of argumentative writing. Before we draw up our own letters and arguments, we will look at a few examples of real letters to think about what makes an effective argumentative letter and what we will try to replicate in our own writing.

• Writing assignment: write an argumentative letter to Joseph A. Califano to agree or disagree with his article in the Washington Post

o (20 minutes) Review models of letters to editors from The New Yorker together as a class

▪ Discussion questions on the structure, tone, and argument of the two models

▪ Review tips for writing letters to an editor

Using the aspects of argumentative writing we just discussed, you have twenty minutes to respond to a topic we all have our own opinion on. In this article, Rebecca Klein discusses a study that finds mean boys to be a bigger problem than mean girls in schools. After reading the article, your task with a partner is to decide whether you agree or disagree with Klein. You must back your argument up with two pieces of evidence that come from your own schooling experience.

o (20 minutes) Briefly brainstorm a letter in response to a one-page article appearing in the Huffington Post with a partner

▪ Share out responses with the class if time allows

Now that we have seen models of argumentative letters and practiced writing our own, we are going to work on argumentative writing with historical thinking. For homework, your task is to use evidence from the Structured Academic Controversy on LBJ to respond to Joseph A. Califano’s article on Selma.

o (5 minutes) Review homework assignment and rubric

▪ Assessment based on ability to argue concisely and logically using historical evidence from SAC documents and lecture

Civil Rights Chronology

Modified from

|1954 |The Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in its ruling on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, |

| |Kansas. |

|1955 |Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus. A boycott follows and the bus |

| |segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional. |

|1957 |Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus uses the National Guard to block nine black students from attending Little Rock High School. |

| |Following a court order, President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to allow the black students to enter the school. |

|1961 |Freedom Rides begin from Washington D.C. into Southern states. Student volunteers are bused in to test new laws prohibiting|

| |segregation. |

|1963 |August: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech to hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington |

| |D.C. |

| |November: JFK is assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) is sworn into office |

|1964 |July: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act declaring discrimination based on race illegal. |

| |November: Democratic candidate and presidential incumbent, LBJ defeats Republican candidate Barry Goldwater |

|1965 |February: Malcolm X is assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam |

| |March: Martin Luther King leads a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama is organized to demand protection for voting |

| |rights. |

| |August: A new Voting Rights Act, which made it illegal to force would-be voters to pass literacy tests in order to vote, is |

| |signed. |

Structured Academic Controversy: Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Bill of 1965, guaranteeing African Americans equal rights and protection as whites under the law. Your job is to determine whether you think Johnson passed this legislation as a Civil Rights leader or as a reluctant follower of the movement?

During today’s class, you will work in teams to discuss arguments convicting and defending President Lyndon B. Johnson. Your goals for today should include looking at both sides of the issue, seeing both sides, and finding common ground.

SAC QUESTION: Was Lyndon B. Johnson a Civil Rights leader or a reluctant follower?

Team A will argue: Lyndon B. Johnson was a Civil Rights leader and at the forefront of the movement.

Team B will argue: Lyndon B. Johnson was a reluctant follower of the Civil Rights movement which was reaching its height during his presidency.

PROCEDURE

30 minutes: With your teammate, read the documents in the LBJ document set

Find four pieces of evidence that support your side.

10 minutes: Team A presents. BOTH PARTNERS MUST PRESENT THEIR

FINDINGS!!!

Team B writes down Team A’s arguments and then repeats them back to Team A.

10 minutes: Team B presents. BOTH PARTNERS MUST PRESENT THEIR

FINDINGS!!!

Team A writes down Team B’s arguments and then repeats them back to Team B.

10 minutes: Everyone CAN ABANDON their positions. Groups of 4 attempt to

develop a consensus.

Guided Questions: Documents A-D Name _____________

Document A

1. (Sourcing) What is the purpose of the State of the Union Address in general and who is Lyndon B. Johnson addressing?

2. (Close reading) What are three issues NOT INCLUDING civil rights does LBJ want Congress to address during this session?

3. (Close reading) Based on this document, what do you think LBJ’s views were on racial injustice?

Document B

1. (Close reading) Why does Malcolm X warn his audience to be wary of 1964 as a political year in America?

2. (Sourcing) Malcolm X is known as an extremist activst, challenging the nonviolent civil rights movement and advocating for gaining racial justice, “by any means necessary.” Do you completely trust what he says to his audience? Why or why not?

Document C

1. (Sourcing) What about this photograph, source note, and caption indicate to you that President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act was a very public affair?

2. (Corrobaration) After examining the first three documents, what motivations might President Johnson have had for making this a very public affair?

Document D

1. (Close reading) What two aspects of the Great Society does President Johnson tell King he is prioritizing before tackling voting rights?

2. (Corrobaration, Sourcing) Comparing Documents C and D, how is Johnson’s intended audience in Document D different? Does this change your opinion on how Johnson views civil rights as part of the Great Society?

3. (Contextualization) Dr. King does not mention his intentions to go to Selma, Alabama to protest voting rights, even though he already was in touch with the movement’s leaders. Knowing this, do you think Dr. King felt that the conversation with President Johnson would be a productive one? Why or why not?

ORGANIZING THE EVIDENCE Name_______________

Use this space to write your main points and the main points made by the other side.

Lyndon B. Johnson was a Civil Rights leader: List the 4 main points/evidence that support this side.

4. From Document ___:

5. From Document ___:

6. From Document ___:

7. From Document ___:

Lyndon B. Johnson was a reluctant follower: List the 4 main points/evidence that support this side.

1. From Document ___:

2. From Document ___:

3. From Document ___:

4. From Document ___:

Whole-Class Discussion Questions

1. Was Lyndon B. Johnson a Civil Rights leader or a reluctant follower?

2. For the people who say LBJ was a Civil Rights leader, what was the most convincing evidence from the documents that swayed you? Can you point us to the exact document and line of text?

3. For the people who say LBJ was a reluctant follower, what was the most convincing evidence from the documents that swayed you in this direction? Can you point us to the exact document and line of text?

4. Regardless, of your concensus, what personal motivations did President Johnson have as evidenced by the documents?

5. Were there any of the four documents that you did not trust because of these personal motivations or for any other reason?

6. Is there any room in the middle of our original Central Historical Question? Is it possible to be both a leader and a follower depending on context? Should we still count LBJ as a hero in the discussion of successes during the Civil Rights Movement if he occassionally was a reluctant follower?

Coming to Consensus

STARTING NOW, YOU MAY ABANDON YOUR ASSIGNED POSITION AND ARGUE FROM EITHER SIDE

Use the space below to outline your group’s agreement. Your agreement should address evidence and argument from both sides.

Document A: LBJ’s State of the Union Address [Modified]

I will be brief, for our time is necessarily short and our agenda is already long.

Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our older citizens; as the session which reformed our tangled transportation and transit policies; as the session which achieved the most effective, efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the session which helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our Republic.

Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy -- not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right.

Let me make one principle of this administration abundantly clear: All of these increased opportunities -- in employment, in education, in housing, and in every field-must be open to Americans of every color. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish not some, but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue, and it must be met by the passage this session of the bill now pending in the House.

All members of the public should have equal access to facilities open to the public. All members of the public should be equally eligible for Federal benefits that are financed by the public. All members of the public should have an equal chance to vote for public officials and to send their children to good public schools and to contribute their talents to the public good.

Source: Lyndon B. Johnson’s First State of the Union Address, January 8th, 1964

Document B: Malcolm X’s

“Ballot or the Bullet” Speech [Modified]

1964 threatens to be the most explosive year America has ever witnessed. The most explosive year. Why? It's also a political year. It's the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro community jiving you and me for some votes. The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery and their treachery, with their false promises which they don't intend to keep.

Why, the Democrats have got the government sewed up, and you're the one who sewed it up for them. And what have they given you for it? Four years in office, and just now getting around to some civil-rights legislation. Just now, after everything else is gone, out of the way, they're going to sit down now and play with you all summer long -- the same old giant con game that they call filibuster. All those are in cahoots together.

The black nationalists aren't going to wait. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he's for civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare himself. Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party. Let him go in there right now and take a moral stand -- right now, not later. Tell him, don't wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 1964, it's the ballot or the bullet.

Source: Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet Speech,” April 3rd, 1964, Cleveland Ohio

Document C: LBJ Signs the Civil Rights Bill

President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Bill on July 2nd, 1964, immediately after addressing the nation on radio and television at 6:45pm

Source: “President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act as Martin Luther King Jr., and others, look on,” photograph taken by Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office on July 2nd, 1964

Document D: LBJ Phone Conversation [Modified]

Context Note: Dr. King discusses the importance of getting Voting Rights legislation signed into law. Johnson agrees, but asks King to wait, expressing the need to pass other parts of Great Society legislation. Two months later, Dr. King led the march on Selma as part of the voting-rights campaign.

King: Well, I certainly appreciate your returning the call, and I don’t want to take but just a minute or two of your time. First I want to thank you for that great State of the Union message. It was really a marvelous presentation, and I think we are on the way now towards the Great Society.

President Johnson: I’ll tell you what our problem is. We’ve got to try . . . with every force at our command, and I mean every force . . . to get these education bills that go to those people under $2,000 a year income. A billion and a half [dollars], and this poverty [bill] that’s a billion and a half, and this health [bill] that’s going to be 900 million next year right at the bottom. We've got to—when we get these big things through that we need, Medicare, Education—I’ve already got that hearing started the 22nd in the House and the 26th in the Senate—your people ought to be very, very . . . uh . . . diligent in looking at those committee members that come from urban areas that are friendly to you to see that those bills get reported right out, because you have no idea. It's shocking to you how much benefits they will get.

King: Yes.

President Johnson: And this one bill is a billion and a half. Now, if we can get that and we can get our Medicare—we ought to get that by February—then we get our poverty [bill], that will be more than double what it was last year. Then we’ve got to come up with the . . . qualification of the voters. That will answer 70 percent of your problems.

Source: President Lyndon B. Johnson Phone Conversation with Martin Luther King Jr., January 15th, 1965, from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Recordings

***ALTERNATE DOCUMENT

Document E: Herald Journal after the Passage of the Voter Rights Act [Modified]

[Gerard] Ford and [William] McCulloch, ranking minority members on the Judiciary Committee, were sponsors of the GOP proposals rivaling the administration’s voting rights bill passed Friday.

In a weekend statement from his ranch, Johnson praised the House for passing the administration voting-rights bill and turning down the GOP proposals. He said that the Ford-McCulloch bill would have “seriously damaged and diluted the guarantee of the right to vote for all Americans.”

Ford and McCulloch retorted with a joint statement read by Ford in which they called Johnson a “Lyndon-come-lately” in civil rights legislation…They argued that although their records on civil rights were “clear and good,” Johnson has “traveled a crooked path.”

Source: Excerpt of an article appearing “LBJ Charged as Advocate of One-Party ”in Herald Journal on July 13th, 1965

References

Cable News Network. (2007). “Extra!: Civil Rights Timeline.” Education with Student News.

.

Califano, Joseph A. (December 26, 2014). “The movie ‘Selma’ has a glaring flaw.” The

Washington Post. .

Davidson, A. (January 22, 2015). “Why ‘Selma’ is more than fair to LBJ.” The New Yorker.



DuVernay, A. (Director). (December 25, 2014). Selma [Motion picture]. United States:

Paramount Pictures.

Schuessler, Jennifer. (December 31, 2014). “Depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in ‘Selma’ Raises

Hackles.” The New York Times.

of-lyndon-b-johnson-in-selma-raises-hackles.html?_r=0.

Argumentative Writing Assignment

You are being tasked with writing a short letter to Mr. Joseph A. Califano and his article in the Washington Post on December 26th, 2014. Due to the constraints on space in the newspaper, your response must be less than ten sentences long to be considered getting published. This letter should explain to Mr. Califano why you disagree, agree, or agree with parts of his article criticizing Selma’s depiction on Lyndon B. Johnson. You must give at least THREE concise reasons to support your stance on Mr. Califano’s opinion and present a clear argument to your thinking in order to receive full credit and have you letter sent to the Washington Post. Feel free to use quotes from the documents used in the LBJ and Civil Rights SAC or quotes from Mr. Califano’s article.

Attached are Mr. Califano’s Washington Post article and a possible layout for your letter to Mr. Califano.

Rubric

For this writing assignment, you will be assessed your ability to construct a strong argument using historical evidence:

3- All three points support your argument fully, explained succinctly, and are based in historical

evidence from SAC documents or from lecture

2- Some of your points support your argument fully, explained succinctly, and based in historical evidence from SAC documents or from lecture, but the argument may lack clarity as a whole.

1- Your points support an argument, but lack historical evidence or complete explanation. Points also may be missing, or may be supporting opposing arguments.

0- Your letter does not have an decipherable argument, or if it does, none of your points of reasons support this argument or are backed by historical evidence.

Preparing for Argumentative Writing

Models of Letters

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Re “Teenagers Pick Up E-Cigarettes as Old-School Smoking Declines” (front page, April 17): The announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that cigarette use among teenagers fell by 25 percent as e-cigarette use tripled from 2013 to 2014 suggests that e-cigarettes may not only help smokers quit, but they may also rapidly replace cigarettes used among youth.

This bodes well for public health, since most health professionals agree that e-cigarettes, which release vapor, are less harmful than their traditional combustible counterparts. But many jurisdictions are quickly putting policies in place to restrict their use, which may prevent smokers from switching to healthier nicotine alternatives.

E-cigarettes, while not completely harmless, pose a substantially lower risk to health than cigarettes, which kill about six million people a year. Any product that has the potential to help reduce this enormous health burden, and possibly eradicate cigarette use, should not be restricted uncritically.

SHARON HOPE GREEN

New York, April 22nd, 2015

The writer is a graduate research assistant at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

To the Editor of the New Yorker:

“What is a degree worth?”

Adam Gopnik makes many pertinent observations in his essay on the relationship between college athletics and higher education (Comment, May 12th). Unfortunately, measuring higher education itself in terms of “market values” had now become the norm, in both public universities, which have to answer to state legislatures, and élite private universities and liberal-arts colleges. Administrators are increasingly appointed because of their ability and willingness to bring the values of the market to bear on their day-to-day decision-making. This results in an emphasis on job placement and starting salaries for recent grauduates, and often in the elmination of foreign-language and other humanities departments, because they add no demonstrable “value” to students. What is most distressing is that many administrators appear to accept the self-evidence of market values. Instead of defending the humanities by arguing for the value of a well-educated citizenry, they defend them only by referring to data showing that, by the time college graduate with degrees in the humanities reach their mid-fifties, they can earn as much as or more than those who majored in pre-professional fields. If we are to escape judging college success in terms of market values and student earning potential, it will be up to educational leaders to make the case for values beyond those of the market.

Alan D. Schrift

Grinnell, Iowa (May 26th, 2014)

Discussion questions for letters:

• What do you notice about the structure of these letters?

o Where do the authors present their argument?

o Where do the author’s present their evidence?

o What do you notice about the length of the letter?

• What is the tone of the letter?

o Is it formal or informal?

o Do they address the article they’re responding to directly or indirectly?

• Which author’s argument did you find more convincing? Why?

Tips for writing letters to editors:

• Be professional and respectful

• Focus on one topic

• Minimize wordiness

• State your argument and provide appropriate evidence

Practice prompt

• Read Rebecca Klein’s article in the Huffington Post, “‘Mean Boys,’ Not Girls, May Be The Bigger Problem in Schools” from December 2014

• Do you agree or disagree with Klein’s premise that boys are a bigger problem in schools?

• Write a brief letter in response to Klein’s article using at least two pieces of evidence from your experience in schools to support your argument

'Mean Boys,' Not Girls, May Be The Bigger Problem In Schools

Rebecca Klein, Huffington Post (December 4th, 2014)

Movies about high school tend to promote images of “mean girls” and "queen bees" who hurt their enemies through negative rumors and exclusion. But a recent study suggests that “mean boys” might actually be a more pressing problem.

New research published last month in the scientific journal Aggressive Behavior found that teenage boys tend to hurt peers with emotional warfare more than their female counterparts do -- despite the fact that teenage girls are typically seen as the gender more likely to engage in emotional bullying. To glean their results, the researchers surveyed a group of over 600 Georgia teenagers every year between sixth and 12th grade.

The study found that boys were more likely to commit acts of relational aggression -– a type of behavior that involves harming others through the manipulation of peer relationships, such as by spreading rumors or intentionally excluding others.

Pamela Orpinas, a professor at the University of Georgia who led the study, said that the study's findings were not consistent with previous research, which has generally found that boys and girls tend to engage in equal amounts of relational aggression. But Orpinas found that boys were consistently more likely to exhibit such behavior, although girls were more likely to be victimized.

Orpinas told The Huffington Post that the results show that schools should start paying attention to bullying issues with both sexes, not only girls.

“Most of the research [about relational aggression] has been in relation to girls,” Orpinas said. “So we don’t hear that much about boys, and this study shows that we need to pay attention to both boys and girls, and need prevention strategies to address issues for both boys and girls.”

While Orpinas could not say whether teens were more likely to bully peers of the opposite sex or the same sex, she noted that boys tended more often to engage in this type of emotional bullying and girls were more often the victims of such bullying.

"We have books, websites and conferences aimed at stopping girls from being aggressive, as well as a lot of qualitative research on why girls are relationally aggressive," Orpinas said in a separate press release announcing the study. "But oddly enough, we don't have enough research on why boys would be relationally aggressive because people have assumed it's a girl behavior."

The study showed that overall rates of both perpetration and victimization were high. Almost all of the students surveyed had participated in some form of relational aggression over the course of the study, and about 90 percent reported that they had at one point been victims. Orpinas noted, though, that the study had its limits. For example, since it only looked at teens in Georgia, Orpinas said she does not know if results could vary by region.

The Washington Post

“The movie Selma has a glaring flaw”

By Joseph A. Califano Jr. December 26, 2014

Joseph A. Califano Jr. was President Lyndon Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969.

What’s wrong with Hollywood?

The makers of the new movie “Selma” apparently just couldn’t resist taking dramatic, trumped-up license with a true story that didn’t need any embellishment to work as a big-screen historical drama. As a result, the film falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself.

In fact, Selma was LBJ’s idea, he considered the Voting Rights Act his greatest legislative achievement, he viewed King as an essential partner in getting it enacted — and he didn’t use the FBI to disparage him.

On Jan. 15, 1965, LBJ talked to King by telephone about his intention to send a voting rights act to Congress: “There is not going to be anything as effective, though, Doctor, as all [blacks] voting.”

Johnson then articulated a strategy for drawing attention to the injustice of using literacy tests and other barriers to stop black Southerners from voting. “We take the position,” he said, “that every person born in this country, when he reaches a certain age, that he have a right to vote . . . whether it’s a Negro, whether it’s a Mexican, or who it is. . . I think you can contribute a great deal by getting your leaders and you, yourself, taking very simple examples of discrimination; where a [black] man’s got . . . to quote the first 10 Amendments, . . . and some people don’t have to do that, but when a Negro comes in he’s got to do it, and if we can, just repeat and repeat and repeat.

King agreed, and LBJ added, sealing the deal, “And if we do that we will break through. It will be the greatest breakthrough of anything, not even excepting this ’64 [Civil Rights] Act, I think the greatest achievement of my administration.”

Selma was the worst place King could find. Johnson met with King on Feb. 9 and heard about King’s choice, a place where just 335 of about 10,000 registered voters were black — despite a population that was 60 percent African American. Johnson thought the public pressure generated by a march from Selma to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, would be helpful, and he hoped there would be no violence. But there was. On March 7, march leader John Lewis was clubbed to the ground; two days later, when another march attempt was staged, a white minister from Boston was killed. Summoned to the White House, Alabama Gov. George Wallace told LBJ that he couldn’t protect the marchers. That gave the president the opportunity to federalize the Alabama National Guard to protect them.

On March 15, Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to propose his Voting Rights Act. When the president intoned the anthem of the civil rights movement, “And we shall overcome,” John Lewis, watching the address on television with King, said that King cried.

For the truth about Johnson, the Voting Rights Act and Selma, listen to the tape of the LBJ-MLK telephone conversation and read my numerous reports to the White House, which have been on the LBJ Presidential Library Web site for years.

All this material was publicly available to the producers, the writer of the screenplay and the director of this film. Why didn’t they use it? Did they feel no obligation to check the facts? Did they consider themselves free to fill the screen with falsehoods, immune from any responsibility to the dead, just because they thought it made for a better story?

Contrary to the portrait painted by “Selma,” Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. were partners in this effort. Johnson was enthusiastic about voting rights and the president urged King to find a place like Selma and lead a major demonstration. That’s three strikes for “Selma.” The movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.

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Vocabulary

Jiving: smooth talk that is often deceptive or insincere

Treachery: betrayal or deceit

Cahoots: working together deceptively

Vocabulary

Combustible: able to catch fire and burn easily

Jurisdictions: the official power to make legal decisions

Eradicate: destroy or put an end to

Vocabulary

Pertinent: relevant

Market values: the amount for which something can be sold on a given market

Humanities: learning on human culture, for example literature, music, art, history

Template for Argumentative Historical Writing

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