Name:
This assignment is called a Document-Based Question, or a DBQ, because it asks you to use multiple documents write an argument in response to a question. First, use the attached documents to complete the chart below on the following question:
Can nonviolence be an effective answer to civil rights injustices?
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Document 1
Document 3
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Document 2
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Document 4
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When you complete this side, flip the sheet over to create your argument.

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In the space below the question, rephrase the question and turn it into a statement of your opinion. For example, “Violence is the most effective answer to civil rights injustices.”
Can nonviolence be an effective answer to civil rights injustices?
2.
Combine your opinion statement from #1 with 3 reasons you believe your opinion. The sentence you create will be your thesis statement. For example, “Violence is the most effective answer to civil rights injustices because nonviolence was not the Civil Rights Movement’s only policy, successful leaders promoted necessary violence,
and the movement needed to respond directly to the violence of white mobs.”
3.
Create an outline that shows how you would use the attached documents to support each of your 3 reasons.
Each reason should include at least 2 pieces of evidence from the documents.
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1 st Reason: a.
1 st Piece of Evidence: b.
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2 nd Reason: a.
1 st Piece of Evidence: b.
2 nd Piece of Evidence:
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3 rd Reason: a.
1 st Piece of Evidence: b.
2 nd Piece of Evidence:

Document 1
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given up by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed...I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters…when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television…
You may well ask, "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth?...Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Birmingham, Alabama. 1963

Document 2
“Civil Rights Freedom Riders Burned Bus” University of Minnesota Department of History. <22 September 2009> http://www.hist.umn.edu/~sargent/1308/civil%20rights%20freedom%20riders%20burned%20bus.jpeg
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Document 3
Why use nonviolence? The most practical reason is that we're trying to create a more just society. You cannot do it if you exaggerate animosities. Martin King used to say, "If you use the law ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,' then you end up with everybody blind and toothless," which is right. So from a practical point of view, you don't want to blow up Nashville downtown, you simply want to open it up so that everybody has a chance to participate in it as people, fully, without any kind of reservations caused by creed, color, class, sex, anything else.
-Reverend James Lawson, Southern Christian Leadership Conference [ Voices of Freedom, p 280 ]

Document 4
The Washington Post, May 16, 1961
Editorial: Darkest Alabama
Alabama calls itself, supposedly with pride, the "heart of Dixie" -- which must mean that it loves the traditions of the old South, chivalry, hospitality, kindness. But some of its citizens showed very little understanding of those traditions on Sunday when they burned and stoned two buses, one in Birmingham and the other just outside of Anniston...
...The "Freedom Riders" engaged in no disorderly conduct and did nothing to provoke violence -- only to exercise a constitutional right. The police dispersed the crowds after one of the buses had been destroyed by fire and after several of the passengers had been injured. But no arrests were made...
...The plain fact is that Americans cannot be assured in Alabama of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment...