Unit 15 Mini DBQ
Document 1.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish
the Constitution of the United States of America.
-Constitution of the United States, Preamble
1. Identify at least two reasons why it was important to establish the Constitution.
Document 2
People are always saying to me, you are in the University of Mississippi, and thats the important fact. But so many unusual unique things
have been a part of my stay here that I seriously doubt that I am in a true sense a student of the university. I'm inclined to go along with the
diehard segregationists on this point. Just having a Negro in residence does not mean that the university has been integrated. Most of the
time, I am perhaps the most segregated Negro in the world
If a white student sits down and drinks a cup of coffee with me, or walks with me across the campus, he is subjected to unhampered
intimidation and harassment. I have been denied my privileges all along, but these whites have not been. Now they have lost a simple
freedom. This sets back the Negro, because anytime you move backward, the person already down suffers more. This campaign, which
apparently has been permitted to go on, really results in a reduction of everybody's rights.
-James Meredith, First Negro admitted to University of Mississippi, 1963
2. In your own words explain why Meredith thinks that simply being admitted to the University is not a sign of integration?
3. Why does Meredith feel that he is the "most segregated Negro in the world?"
Document 3
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
4. What are the goals that Dr. King outlined for the Civil Rights Movement?
Document 4
Recounting her experience at a 1963 Sit-in at Woolworths
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
5. How did white students react to the Sit-in?
Document 5
Police use dogs to quell civil unrest in Birmingham, Ala., in May 1963. Birmingham's police commissioner "Bull" Connor also allowed
fire hoses to be turned on young civil rights demonstrators. These measures set off a backlash of sentiment that rejuvenated the flagging
civil rights movement.
-AP photo, 1963
6. What was one role that the police played in the Civil Rights Movement?
7. Why did these actions increase interest and enthusiasm around the Civil Rights Movement?
Document 6
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
8. In your own words, explain what did the Voting Rights Act do?
Document 7
One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to this point there has been no national organization which could speak to the
growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghettos and the black-belt South. There has been only a "civil rights" movement,
whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of middle-class whites. It served as a sort of buffer zone between that audience and angry
young blacks. It claimed to speak for the needs of a community, but it did not speak in the tone of that community. None of its so-called
leaders could go into a rioting community and be listened to. In a sense, the blame must be shared--along with the mass media--by those
leaders for what happened in Watts, Harlem, Chicago, Cleveland, and other places. Each time the black people in those cities saw Dr.
Martin Luther King get slapped they became angry. When they saw little black girls bombed to death in a church and civil rights workers
ambushed and murdered, they were angrier; and when nothing happened, they were steaming mad. We had nothing to offer that they could
see, except to go out and be beaten again. We helped to build their frustration.
-Stokely Carmichael, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, 1967
9. Why did Carmichael feel that the Civil Rights Movement was unsuccessful?
Document 8
Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long
permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.
[Change] will require a commitment to national action--compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most
powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new
will
-Excerpt from the Kerner Report, following an investigation of urban riots and unrest in the summers beginning in 1964, released in 1968
10. According to the Kerner Report were racial relations in America improving or deteriorating in the mid 1960s (be sure to provide
evidence for your answer)?