Task -Was civil disobedience or militant activism a better strategy for furthering the Civil Rights Movement?

Use 5 documents to justify your argumentative essay Create a clear, concise thesis, that must state the position you support Evaluate both sides of the argument to determine which strategy was better In-depth Analysis of the documents-why are the activists advocating for their

position. Avoid only copying what is in a document without analysis and/or evaluation

Explain why you support this argument Use evidence from the documents and outside information to support

your position Explain why you disagree with the counter-argument Use evidence from the documents and outside information to oppose the

counter-argument Refer to the documents in your essay- example: “As it says in document

D…” or “Malcolm X said….” Conclusion that summarizes your position

Excerpt from Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s autobiography and speech.

A. “During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. These are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.”

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

According to Dr. King, how should African-Americans struggle to achieve civil rights?

Why should African-Americans follow this method?

B. Malcolm X excerpt from “Stop singing, start swinging” speech

“I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander”

“Today it’s time to stop singing and start swing- ing. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay (Heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali) can sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavy-weight champion of the world – swi- nging helped him become the heavy-weight champion. This government has failed us; the government itself has failed us, and the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us. And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have fail- ed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self-help program, a do-it-your- self philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it’s-already-too-late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with, and the only way we are going to solve our problem is with a self- help program. Before we can get a self-help program started we have to have a self-help phi- losophy.

As long as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you think that old sit-down thought you’ll be in some kind of sit-down action. They’ll have you sitting in everywhere. It’s not so good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit-in. That right there castrates you. Right there it brings you down. What goes with it? Think of the I- mage of someone sitting. An old woman can sit. An old man can sit. A chump can sit. A co- ward can sit. Anything can sit. Well you and I been sitting long enough, and it’s time today for us to start doing some standing, and some fighting to back that up.

According to Malcolm X, how should African-Americans struggle for civil rights?

Why should African-Americans follow this method?

C. The African-American organization “Black Panthers” Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton standing in the street armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun.

What do we learn about the Black Panthers from this photo ?

D. Black Panther Party: What We Want Now! (10 point program)

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.2. We want full employment for our people.3. We want an end to the robbery by the white men of our Black Community. (later

changed to "we want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our black and oppressed communities.")

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent

American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.

6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and

jails.9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their

peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

10.We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

What so we learn about the Black Panthers from their 10 point program?

E. “March on Washington” demanding federal laws to protect African-Americans

civil rights

What do we learn from this photo about Martin Luther King Jr and the March on

Washington DC?

F. March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 1963

Civil Rights and Labor leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was organized with several national and local organizations including: NAACP, The Urban League, Southern Christian Leadership

Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and United Auto Workers (UAW).

The march is famous for Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial

The goals were:

Passage of meaningful civil rights legislation; Immediate elimination of school segregation; A program of public works, including job training, for the unemployed; A Federal law prohibiting discrimination in public or private hiring; A $2-an-hour minimum wage nationwide (equivalent to $16 in 2017); Withholding Federal funds from programs that tolerate discrimination; Enforcement of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution by reducing congressional

representation from States that disenfranchise citizens; (punishment for states that obstructed African-American’s right to vote)

A broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to currently excluded employment areas; Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when constitutional rights

are violated.

After the March, the speakers traveled to the White House for a brief discussion of proposed civil rights legislation with President John F. Kennedy, his brother the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy had watched King's speech on TV and was very impressed

How were the goals of the Civil Rights leaders and Black Panther similar and different?

F. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Founding Statement

We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of

our purpose, the presupposition of our belief, and the manner of our action.

Nonviolence, as it grows from the Judeo-Christian tradition, seeks a social order of

justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents the crucial

first step towards such a society.

Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear. Love transcends hate. Acceptance

dissipates prejudice; hope ends despair. Faith reconciles doubt. Peace dominates

war. Mutual regards cancel enmity. Justice for all overthrows injustice. The

redemptive community supersedes immoral social systems.

By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence,

nonviolence nurtures the atmosphere in which reconciliation (forgiving) and justice

become actual possibilities.

Although each local group in this movement must diligently work out the clear meaning of this statement of purpose, each act or phase of our corporate effort must reflect a genuine spirit of love and good-will.

Why is the SNCC in favor of non-violence?

G. Rosa Parks and The Montgomery Bus BoycottThe spark for the boycott was the arrest of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on one of the city's buses. After Fred Gray, a black lawyer, was informed of Rosa Park's arrest, he started putting his plan for the

boycott into action. His first step was to create over 35,000 handbills reading:

"Another Negro (African-American) woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday."

The boycott ended over a year later in 1956 when the buses were forced to integrate by the government.

How did African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama fight for their rights?

H. Stokely Carmichael civil rights leader, "Black Power Speech" 

“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.

Each time the black people 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. We had only the old language of love and suffering. And in most places-that is, from the liberals and middle class-we got back the old language of patience and progress. . . . Such language, along with admonitions (urging) to remain non-violent and fear the white backlash, convinced some that that course was the only course to follow. It misled some into believing that a black minority could bow its head and get whipped into a meaningful position of power. The very notion is absurd. . . . 

From our viewpoint, rampaging white mobs and white night-riders must be made to understand that their days of free head-whipping are over. Black people should and must fight back. Nothing more quickly repels someone bent on destroying you than the unequivocal message: "O.K., fool, make your move, and run the same risk I run-of dying." 

According to Stokley Carmichael , how should African-Americans fight for their rights?