Civil RIGHTS MOVEMENT DBQ

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Ricardo Valdivia April 5, 2017 5th period AP U.S. History “The Civil Rights Movement DBQ Essay” Prompt: Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960s in the goals, strategies, and support... of the movement for African American civil rights. Before the 1960’s, African American civil rights were severely encroached upon. All aspects of American life, from hospitals to schools to water fountains, were segregated,. Literacy tests, poll taxes, the grandfather clause, and pure intimidation kept African Americans out of the polls. The 1960s, the peak years of the civil rights movement, showed changes in the goals of the civil rights movement, evolving from desegregation to voting rights to equal economic opportunity; the accompanying strategies shifted accordingly with the goals, litigation being more popular during the first goal; and the civil rights movement gained support from whites, including some prominent leaders, but lost some black support, as it progressed. The 1960s were a turbulent time for the United States of America. The U.S. was at a crossroads on race relations that would ultimately see the country live up to the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence. Throughout this decade, the Civil Rights Movement’s goals, strategies, and support began changing as new victories and defeats in the movement transformed the message of social and political equality to one that began encompassing economic empowerment for the Black community. First of all, The Civil Rights Movements have goals that were established to help African American people. The goals of the African American civil rights movement changed as a catalysts provoked change, or the goals were achieved: the first goal, desegregation, lasted from 1947-1963; the goal of voting rights extended from 1963-1965, and the last goal – equal economic opportunity and improving urban conditions, officially lasted from 1965-1968. In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement focused on targeting the rampant segregation. The movement continued to win desegregation victories through the other strategies, finally culminating in Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed segregation in public accommodations and was specific to prevent the loopholes that other desegregation laws had contained. In 1963, Martin Luther King-one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, a Baptist minister, and was one of America’s greatest orators, wrote a letter from the Birmingham jail speaking his main goals and propositions for the equality of rights for African American in the white society. These goals were the determination of nonviolent actions to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community will help men rise and establish the rights for equality. Even when the situation was complicated remain nonviolent (Document 7). In April 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) supported the philosophical or religious ideal of the nonviolent purpose of Martin Luther King. They believed that throughout nonviolence they will be accepted having the equality of rights (Document 1). Also the goals established amendments. For instance the 15th amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Document 5 [Show More]

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