Question: From the 1950s to 1970s leaders of the Civil ...



Civil Rights DBQ Name____________________________

Directions: Analyze the primary documents and answer the following questions. You will use these documents, along with outside information to write a critical evaluation of the Civil Rights movement.

Document A: Woolworth Counter Strike "A group of Negro Students . . . ," photograph, 1960.

Background information: In 1960, students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, a historically black institution, defied segregation by sitting at the luncheon counter of the F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro.

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1. What method of resistance is illustrated in the photo above? What was the purpose of this protest?

Document B: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream” Speech Excerpt (August 28, 1963)

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

2. In “I Have a Dream,” how does King explain the goal of the Civil Rights movement?

Document C: Black Panther Party Platform, 1966

We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self defense.

3. What do the Black Panthers suggest should be done about police brutality? How do they justify their beliefs?

Document D: Statement by the minister of defense of the Black Panthers, May 2, 1967

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense calls upon the American people in general and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist California Legislature which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless at the very same time that racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder, and repression of black people.

Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetrated against black people. All of these efforts have been answered by more repression, deceit, and hypocrisy. As the aggression of the racist American government escalates in Vietnam, the police agencies of America escalate the repression of black people throughout the ghettoes of America. Vicious police dogs, cattle prods, and increased patrols have become familiar sights in black communities. City Hall turns a deaf ear to the pleas of black people for relief from this increasing terror.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense believes that the time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.

4. According to this statement, what reasons do the Black Panthers give for arming themselves against a racist government?

Document E: Malcolm X, “Ballot or the Bullet” Excerpt, April 3, 1964

We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation. All of 'em from the same enemy. The government has failed us. You can't deny that. Any time you're living in the 20th century, 1964, and you walking around here singing "We Shall Overcome," the government has failed you. This is part of what's wrong with you, you do too much singing. Today it's time to stop singing and start swinging.

5. In what way did Malcolm X differ from the southern Civil Rights movement?

Document F: Stokely Carmichael “What We Want,” 1966

But our vision is not merely of a society in which all black men have enough to buy the good things of life. When we urge that black money go into black pockets, we mean the communal pocket. We want to see money go back into the community and used to benefit it. We want to see the cooperative concept applied in business and banking. We want to see black ghetto residents demand that an exploiting store keeper sell them , at minimal cost, a building or a shop that they will own and improve cooperatively; they can back their demand with a rent strike, or a boycott, and a community so unified behind them that no one else will move into the building or buy at the store. The society we seek to build among black people, then, is not a capitalist one. It is a society in which the spirit of community and humanistic love prevail.

6. In “What We Want,” how does Carmichael explain the goal of the SNCC in the Civil Rights movement?

Doc G: News Photograph, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

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7. In the photograph from Birmingham, Alabama, what were the goals and methods of the protesters?

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