Document Based-

Question

Francesca Allegra &

Natasha von Kaeppler
Name: _____________________________ Date: ____________

Part A: Document-Based Essay Question (DBQ)

Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that
integrates your interpretation of Documents A – I and your knowledge of the period
referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key
pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period.
Some of the documents have been edited, and wording and punctuation have been
modernized. High marks will only be earned on essays that integrate both information
from the documents and outside knowledge.

1. Discuss how radical leaders changed the face of the Civil Rights Movement in the
1950’s and 1960’s.
 DOC. A

Malcolm X speech at Washington Heights, March 1964

If you're interested in freedom, you need some judo, you need some karate--you
need all the things that will help you fight for freedom. If we don't resort to the
bullet, then immediately we have to take steps to use the ballot. Equality of
opportunity, if the constitution at the present time [doesn't offer it], then change it.
Either it offers it, or it doesn't offer it. If it offers it--good, then give it to us--if it
doesn't offer it, then change it. You don't need a debate. You don't need a filibuster.
You need some action!

So what you and I have to do is get involved. You and I have to be right there
breathing down their throats. Every time they look over their shoulders, we want
them to see us…It's going to be the ballot or the bullet...

Malcolm X's Audubon address, 1965

 DOC B

Excerpt from “Rise in Racial Extremism Worries Harlem Leaders”, The New York
Times, January 25,1960
 DOC. C

Anonymous letter to the FBI, May 1969

 DOC. D

We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black
self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from
racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black
people should arm themselves for self-defense.

-Black Panther Party Platform, 1966

 DOC. E

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. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the
nonviolent resister 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
type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as
Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals
could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of
creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent
gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark
depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and
brotherhood.

- Martin Luther King, Letters from a Birmingham Jail, 1963

 DOC. F

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his
citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations
of our nation until the bright day of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful
place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst
for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred…we must rise to
majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

…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 the Negro in Mississippi
cannot vote until justice rolls down like waters and righteous like a mighty stream.
So…From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens…we will
be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and
sing…”Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!”

–Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have A Dream” Speech, Washington 1963

 DOC. G

Montgomery Police Report, December 1955

Doc. A: A student reading this document could instantly see that Malcolm X’s speech
poses a stark contrast to the pacifist words of Martin Luther King Jr. This passage depicts
the shift from debates to gain rights for African Americans to the ever-growing pressure
too use violence—or, as X calls it, “action.” While the 50’s were an era of pacifist
speeches and a sense that violence was unnecessary, as blacks saw fewer and fewer
changes in society, they grew frustrated, hence the allure of Malcolm X’s bloodthirsty,
“ballot of the bullet” mindset. A student could also comment on Malcolm X’s oratory
skills in comparison to Martin Luther King’s, and how speeches played a huge role in the
changing movement.

Doc. B: A student might recall the propaganda used in the Civil Rights Movement,
namely depicting whites as “inhuman devils.” While pacifist leaders wished for a world
in which “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners [would] be able
to sit together at the table of brotherhood,”—a quote of Martin Luther King Jr.’s-
Malcolm X and Mr. Muhammad both taught their followers the belief that Allah would
“avenge” them, and wipe out the white race. The use of pamphlets as propaganda
heightened the ever-insurmountable barrier between blacks and whites, and made
African-Americans increasingly angrier at their situation, inciting them to violence. This
passage also demonstrates how religion was used to differentiate blacks and whites; while
Malcolm X gained followers with his Muslim organization, the Nation of Islam, he
managed to convince many that all whites were Christians and Christianity was a religion
“organized…for the purpose of making slaves of black mankind.”

Doc. C: A student could instantly recognize Greensboro, North Carolina as an area of

huge racial tension during the Civil Rights era. This passage shows the amount of
hysteria that circulated through the era, and the paranoia experienced by many that they
could not speak out against the movement for fear of their lives. Huey Percy Newton and
Bobby Seale preached for a “revolutionary war”, and thus created a pamphlet that marked
the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King as a failure and declared that any
promised changes to their lifestyle would take too long to be employed or simply not
established. This letter was written during the tail-end of the Civil Rights Movement,
during the year 1969, and illustrates the shift from peaceful protest to radical, fear-
inducing action.

Doc. D: A student could pick up on the violent hostility that characterized the later Civil
Rights advocates that contrasts with the non-violent emphasis of those from the 1950s
and early half of the 1960s. Along with describing the violent nature of the Black
Panther Party and other groups that used Malcolm X’s black power ideology, a student
would remember the riots, such as the Watts Riot in 1965 and the Detroit Riot in 1967,
that resulted from the hostile attitude of the late 1960s. The Panthers were primarily
instigators of black retaliation, creating anti-white sentiments, such as “policing the
police”–a sentiment that attacked the fire hosing, gassing, and other violence that whites
frequently used to break up black protests–rather than a desire for equality for all. This
Black Panther’s Party Platform attempts to justify the move to violent Civil Rights
movement that characterized the latter half of the 1960s.
Doc. E: A student could recognize Martin Luther King’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail”
and recall the march in Birmingham, Alabama that exemplified the peaceful
protesting lead by King and his followers. This part of the letter explains that the
logic behind peaceful protests is addressing a necessary tension–a justification that
contrasts with the ideologies of the violent Black Power movements lead by
Malcolm X. A student would use this document, along with specific examples of
both movements, such as King’s march on Washington and Malcolm X’s Black
Power theory that founded violent groups such as the Black Panthers, to highlight
this difference in character of the Civil Rights movements in the 1950s and early
1960s versus those in the late 1960s. Written in 1963, just before white police forces
used hoses and gassing to stop black Civil Rights protests, and a few years before the
Black Panther Party began, this letter offered Martin Luther King’s peaceful solution
for both whites and blacks to attain equal civil rights. As proven by the
monstrosities, such as the Watts Riot and the assassinations of Martin Luther King
and Malcolm X, King’s proposal was ignored, and the Civil Rights movement
swayed from peaceful to violent in the latter half of the 1960s.

Doc. F: A student would use this speech to illustrate the peacefulness of MLK’s language
that contrasts drastically with that of Malcolm X. The speech advocates for peaceful
resistance and desegregation in all aspects of the country, two ideals that characterized
the earlier Civil Rights Movements before the more violent, black power initiatives in the
latter half of the 1960s. Triggered by the speech’s mentioning of voting discrimination,
the student might also remember President Johnson’s 1964 Voting Rights Act, and
furthermore the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act–all pieces of legislation that
demonstrated how central the Civil Rights issue was during the 1960s. The student
would also be able to use the gender and religious references to set the background for
the era, mentioning that not only blacks sought civil rights, but women and religious
groups as well. With this document, possible outside information includes Brown v.
Board of Education, the March on Washington, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and other
peaceful actions by civil rights advocates.

Doc. G: A student would immediately recognize this document as a reference to Rosa

Parks’ bus scandal and the Montgomery Bus boycott that followed. He or she would note
that the warrant is vague and does not specify any truly harmful activities–proof that
many blacks were unjustly convicted in the 1950s and 1960s, and justification for the
peaceful movements for Civil Rights, such as Rosa Parks and the bus boycott. The
student would mention other non-violent Civil Rights efforts but would then remember
the hostile white police force that categorized the era and stimulated the development of
violent Civil Rights movements to retaliate. One ideal of the Black Panthers, a group
hostilely advocating for Civil Rights, was “policing the police” which directly retaliated
against the police through violent riots. Along with Civil Rights leaders, such as Malcolm
X who was the core of violent movement, as well as Martin Luther King Jr. who shared
her method of peaceful protest, Rosa Parks and her arrest signified individual resistance
against discrimination of blacks.
List of Outside Info:
- Freedom Rides
- Crisis at Little Rock
- Brown vs. Board of Education
- Plessy vs. Ferguson "Separate but Equal"
- Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Student Sit-ins
- Nation of Islam
- President Eisenhower
- KKK
-Watts Riot and Detroit Riots
-President Johnson and Legislation (i.e. Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act)
-NAACP/SNCC
-MLK assassination 1968
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ali-Dinar, Ali B. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]." African Studies Center,
University of Pennsylvania. 21 May 2010
<http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html>.

"Black Panther's Ten-Point Program." Marxists Internet Archive. 21 May 2010

<http://marxists.architexturez.net/history/usa/workers/black-
panthers/1966/10/15.htm>.

"Malcom X - "The Ballot or the Bullet"" Speeches of Malcolm X. 21 May 2010

<http://www2.volstate.edu/socialscience/FinalDocs/1960s/malcomX.htm>.

"Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream." American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in
the United States. 21 May 2010
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>.

"Rosa Parks Police Report." National Archives and Records Administration. 21 May
2010 <http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger image.html?
i=/education/lessons/rosa-parks/images/police-report-
l.jpg&c=/education/lessons/rosa-parks/images/police-report.caption.html>.

"The Malcolm X Project." Columbia University in the City of New York. 21 May 2010
<http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/nationofislam.html>.

Wood, Adrian. "The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense." Socialist Alternative. 21
May 2010 <http://www.socialistalternative.org/literature/panther/ch2.html>.