Historical Context:
Even as the civil rights movement achieved its greatest results in the 1960s, black Americans disagreed on the methods that should be used to secure the equal protection of their rights. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s a diversity of voices shaped the debate over civil rights.
Task:
A. In the 1960s, what were the different methods that individuals and groups advocated? What were the different goals that they hoped to achieve?
B. Which of these methods and goals was most successful?
Even as the civil rights movement achieved its greatest results in the 1960s, black Americans disagreed on the methods that should be used to secure the equal protection of their rights. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s a diversity of voices shaped the debate over civil rights.
Task:
A. In the 1960s, what were the different methods that individuals and groups advocated? What were the different goals that they hoped to achieve?
B. Which of these methods and goals was most successful?
Use details from the sources below to support your ideas.
Please remember:
Please remember:
- Write in full sentences with correct grammar and spelling.
- Incorporate quotes by introducing the author, shortening and integrating the quote into the sentence, and explaining the meaning of the quote.
- Make sure your answer is at least five sentences long. Longer is better.
A. |
Below is an excerpt of a letter to Martin Luther King, Jr. from a group of eight clergymen of all different religious identities - Jewish, Catholic, Methodist, etc. It was written on April 12, 1963 in regards to the protests in Birmingham, Alabama.
We clergymen are among those who, in January, …expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed… However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely… Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions," we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems… We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.
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B. |
In response to the letter above, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" on April 16, 1963.
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored… So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation... We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed...
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern... One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws… All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality... Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful... There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust. In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery…? We must come to see, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. |
C. |
The excerpt below is from Joseph H. Jackson, “Annual Address to the National Baptist Convention,” September 10, 1964. It was delivered at 84th Annual Session of the National Baptist Convention and was meant to attack Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach of civil disobedience.
We have heard much in recent months about direct action in terms of boycotts, pickets, sit-ins, and demonstrations of various kinds. In each case the purpose as stated is a lofty one; namely, the winning of civil rights and the achievement of the equality of opportunity. I repeat, these are worthy ends and desirable goals, but this kind of direct action is orientated against others, and for the most part, must be classified in the negative since they have been designed to stop, arrest, or hinder certain orderly procedures in the interest of civil rights...
Today, I call for another type of direct action; that is, direct action in the positive which is orientated towards the Negro’s ability, talent, genius, and capacity. Let us take our economic resources, however insignificant and small, and organize and harness them, not to stop the economic growth of others, but to develop our own and to help our own community. If our patronage withdrawn from any store or business enterprise will weaken said enterprise, why not organize these resources and channel them into producing enterprises that we ourselves can direct and control. In the act of boycotting, our best economic talents are not called into play, and we ourselves are less productive and seek to render others the same. Why not build for ourselves instead of boycotting what others have produced?... The progress of the race lies not in continued street demonstrations, and the liberation of an oppressed people shall not come by acts of revenge and retaliation but by the constructive use of all available opportunities and a creative expansion of the circumstances of the past into stepping stones to higher things. |
D. |
Malcolm X was a leading spokesperson of the Nation of Islam from the 1950s until he split with the group in 1964. Below and to the left are a series of excerpts from television interviews of Malcolm X from 1963 to 1964. Below and to the right is an excerpt from a speech made on November 10, 1963 entitled "A Message to the Grassroots."
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E. |
On July 24, 1967 a race riot started in Detroit, Michigan. It lasted 5 days before it was put down by Army troops.
Below and to the left is a newspaper headline from July 25, 1967. Below and to the right is an excerpt from the 1968 Kerner Commission Report which was tasked with the job of researching the cause of the riots.
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F.
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The poster below is from the Black Panther Party, 1969. To the right is an excerpt from the Black Panther Party Platform.
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