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 Afr
...
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
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