Primary Source Documents
The purpose of this assignment is to use the primary source analysis techniques you learned in class during the semester to produce a final essay.
Read the two primary source documents, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet”.
Then write a paper that addresses the following questions:
Who wrote the documents and why?
How do the two documents agree? How do they disagree?
Why are the perspectives different?
Under what specific historical circumstances were these documents created?
What groups were the two authors associated with?
Consider the conflicting visions of America the two had: why were they acting the way they were? Make specific connections to the documents and explain your thinking.
Which perspective would you agree with more, and why?
