Essay Outline: Write an opening sentence for each paragraph below and
then list two historical facts you will include in each of the body paragraphs.
.
(I feel that)
Task 1
Answer Task 2 in your own words……..
Task 2
Answer Task 3 in your own words…..
Task 3
Compared to today…………..
Compared to Today…..
Name:
US History 2
DOCUMENT BASED ESSAY
Historical Context:
United States History has been a history of struggle: struggle to overcome opposition and
oppression; struggle to gain rights of access and opportunity; struggle to gain freedom. That struggle
is clearly visible in the case of African-Americans and their struggle for legal, political, and social
equality during the Civil Rights Movement.
Task:
Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, answer the
questions that follow each document in Part A. Your answers to the questions will help you write the
Part B essay.
 Identify and discuss two examples of how African American were denied
their legal, political, and social rights during the Civil Rights Movement.
 Identify and discuss two efforts that have been made to help African
Americans attain their legal, political, and social rights during the Civil Rights
Movement.
 Evaluate the extent to which the group has achieved equality as a result of
the Civil Rights Movement
Document 1
Herblock, 1965
1. According to this cartoon, what was the biggest obstacle to achieving Equal Rights during the Civil
Rights Movement?
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Document 2
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn
back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be
satisfied?" 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 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.
-Martin Luther King Jr., Excerpt from "I Have a Dream," 1963
2. Based on this document, what types of inequality was Dr. King fighting during the Civil Rights
Movement?
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Document 3
3. Based on this document what was illegal according to Sec 10 of the Montgomery city code?
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Document 4
At noon, students from a nearby white high school started pouring in to Woolworth's. When they first saw
us they were sort of surprised. They didn't know exactly how to react. A few started to heckle and the
newsmen became interested again. Then the white students started chanting all kinds of anti-Negro slogans.
We were called a little bit of everything. The rest of the seats except the three we were occupying had been
roped off to prevent others from sitting down. A couple of boys took one end of the rope and made it into a
hangman's noose. Several attempts were made to put it around our necks. The crowd grew as more students
and adults came in for lunch.
The mob started smearing us with ketchup, mustard, sugar, pies, and everything on the counter. Soon Joan
and I were joined by John Salter, but the moment he sat down he was hit on the jaw with what appeared to
be brass knuckles. Blood gushed from his face and someone threw salt into the open wound. About ninety
policemen were standing outside the store; they had been watching the whole thing through the windows,
but had not come in to stop the mob or do anything.
-Anne Moody, 1968 (Recounting her experience at a 1963 Sit-in at Woolworths)
4a. Based on this document, what was one of the startegies of the Civil Rights Movement?
4b. Based on this document, how did whites react to the Civil Rights Activits?
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Document 5
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't
negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the
very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and
foster such a tension that a community which 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. …I
am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a
type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth
- Letter from a Birmingham jail written by Dr Martin Luther King, April 16, 1963
5. According to this document, what was the goal and purpose of non-violent direct action?
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Document 6
To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and
qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status
in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be
undone. . . . Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of
Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority.
-Justice Warren in Brown v Board Education, 1954
6. Based on this document, what was the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v Board of Education?
Document 7
AN ACT To enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other
purposes.
SEC. 2. No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be
imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of
the United States to vote on account of race or color.
-Excerpt from the 1965 Voting Rights Act
7. Based on this document, what was the goal of the Voting Rights Act?
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Document 8
8. Based on this document, how quickly did states integrate after the 1954 Brown v Board of Education
decision?
Document 9
9. Based on these documents what criticism has been made about the achievements of the Civil Rights
Movement?
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