Civil Rights Movement Document Based Questions Essay
The Four Primary Source Documents
1. A letter (later known as Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”) written by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while Dr. King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama in the Spring of 1963 for his role in leading non-violent protests in that city (later known as the “Children’s Crusade”)
2. Malcolm X’s famous “Ballot or Bullet Speech” given in April 1964
3. The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program issued shortly after the Black Panthers’ formation in Oakland, California in 1966
4. An excerpt from The Kerner Commission Report on Civil Disorders issued after
widespread riots in northern cities from 1965-1967 (and issued just weeks before the assassination of Dr. King (in April 1968) and the consequent riots that ensued across the country thereafter)
An Essential Question: The Role of Violence during the Civil Rights Movement
All four of the primary source documents listed above also address violence as the basis of some strategy, including:
(a) violence by White supremacists in response to and in resistance against non-violent African American-led civil rights protests
(b) non-violent direct action and civil disobedience by African Americans and other civil rights protestors that strategically “used” White supremacist violence, via the media, to engender more support from moderate Whites for enhanced civil rights for African Americans
(c) riots by African American in their own communities in northern cities from 1965-1967 and then later in 1968 across the country after Dr. King’s assassination.
Your Three Specific Tasks in Writing This Essay Based on your reading of the 4 primary source documents listed above, and secondarily on the videos
you viewed, your Civil Rights Movement Project presentations, and our class discussions:
first, trace the evolution from non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to increasing militancy among African American leadership during the Civil Rights Movement and explain the reasons for (and give several specific examples of transitionary events that led to) that evolution
second, explain the essential differences (and several important similarities) in the philosophical beliefs as well as the specific strategies and objectives between and among Dr. King, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers
third, explain how Dr. King might have responded to both:
(a) arguments promoting “Black Power” and Black Nationalism (the latter of which Dr. King briefly addressed in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail)
(b) the Kerner Commission’s specific conclusions about the primary causes for
the riots in major northern cities in the mid-to-late 1960’s.
