Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

Topic Exploration Worksheet

 

All historians have areas of interest that they choose to study. This is what you will be doing in your final paper! First, however, you must decide what will be the focus of your paper.

 

In this activity, you will be exploring your chosen topic and then narrowing your focus. Finally, you will begin thinking about your sources and how they might connect to your paper.

 

Answering these questions below is the first step in writing your final paper!

 

Step 1: Select your topic and focus question! Read the topics from the list on page 2 of this document and choose the topic and focus that interests you. Fill out the box below.

 

What is your topic and focus question?

1. Topic:Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s       Focus Question: The Civil Rights Movement, once unified, splintered in the early 1960s. What contributed to this split, and what happened to the movement as a result?   In mid-1960s, numerous black activists began to lose faith in the civil rights developments that had targeted the most obvious forms of discrimination. The end of court-mandated segregation didn’t give immediate equality upon blacks or reform a political system that left blacks economically and politically crippled. King’s nonaggressive approach had dominated in the 1950s and early 1960s, numerous blacks, particularly in the North, implemented a more revolutionary stance. As an upsurge of nationalist sentiment grew inside the movement, groups such as SNCC and CORE had more militant agendas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2: In 50 words or more, state why you chose the topic and focus that you chose. It could be how the topic is of interest to you and that you have studied it previously or that you want to learn more about something of which you do not have knowledge.

I choose this topic because the Civil Rights movement always interested me, I also wanted to learn and know more than just the basics that many know. There’s so much that played into the Civil rights movement.  There were specific events that happened that sparked the movement and those are the stories that everyone seems to know.  Like I said before, there is so much more. The event that perhaps didn’t get the attention that other events did. All paved the way for this movement to commence. Writing this paper will allow me to investigate and learn the past events and allow me to further understand the movement.

 

Step 3: List the two primary source and two secondary sources that you have chosen in the boxes below.

 

Primary Source #1	Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Dudley, M. E. Brown v. Board of Education (1954). New York: Twenty-First Century Books, 1994.
Primary Source #2	Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have A Dream” (1963)
Secondary Source #1	Wolfson, A., & Moynihan, D.P. (2003). The Martin Luther King We Remember. Public Interest 152(Summer 2003), 39-64.
Secondary Source #2	Litwack, L. F. (2009). “Fight the Power!”: The Legacy Of The Civil Rights Movement. Journal of Southern History 75(1), 3-28.

Step 4: In 50 words or more, describe your initial thoughts about how your sources relate to your chosen topic and focus question. Make sure to provide specific examples from each of the four sources that illustrate how well they will help you answer your focus question. This will help you begin to think about the form of your paper!

 

My first initial thought for that focus question was. I have to do a lot of reading! Then once I got that out of the way. I asked myself there has to be events in history that caused things for the Civil Rights movement to slow down and cause the people perhaps to lose momentum. I will have to do some investigating making sure to log every event that cause it to be able to come up with my conclusion as to why it occurred.

 

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)   *In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously strikes down segregation in public schools, sparking the Civil Right movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have A Dream” (1963) * The official event was called the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” On June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy made a nationally televised address calling for a drive for more civil rights. That same night, NAACP leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Mississippi.

Wolfson, A., & Moynihan, D.P. (2003). The Martin Luther King We Remember. Public Interest 152(Summer 2003), 39-64.

Litwack, L. F. (2009). “Fight the Power!”: The Legacy Of The Civil Rights Movement. Journal of Southern History 75(1), 3-28.

 

 

 

 

Topic instructions: Select a topic from this list (see descriptions located in your Blackboard course). Once you have done this, select your specific focus and sources from the next list.

1. The Progressive Era: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
2. The New Deal and the Great Depression: The Social Security Act
3. World War II: The Internment of Japanese Americans
4. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s
5. Feminism and the Women’s Movement
6. Starting at Stonewall: The Gay Rights Movement

 

Focus and source instructions: Now that you have your topic, select your desired focus option. Then, it will list the sources that can be used for this topic. Choose two primary and two secondary sources. Think about your choices and then fill out the worksheet on page 1!

 

1. The Progressive Era: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
   1. Focus Question: The Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire highlighted problems in workplace safety, building code enforcement, and women’s labor. What changes were made to federal and state occupational safety laws as a result of the fire?
      Primary Sources:
2. “141 Men and Girls Die in Waist Factory Fire.” New York Times, March 26, 1911
3. Photos of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
4. Excerpts from Trial Testimony
5. Trial Summations
6. 1912, Preliminary Report of the New York Factory Investigating Commission

 

Secondary Sources:

1. Pool, H. (2012). The politics of mourning: The triangle fire and political belonging. Polity, 44(2), 182-211. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/pol.2011.23
2. Burt, E. V. (2005). Working Women And The Triangle Fire: Press Coverage Of A Tragedy. Journalism History, 30(4), 189-199.
3. Hulden, V. (2012). Employer Organizations’ Influence On The Progressive-Era Press. Journalism History, 38(1), 43-53.
4. Linder, D. (2002). The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial. Famous Trials: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial, 1911.

 

2. The New Deal and the Great Depression
   1. Focus Question:The New Deal revolutionized the relationship between the federal government and the governed in the United States. Using comparison and contrast, what were the arguments of those in favor of—and those against—the New Deal in the 1930s.

Primary Sources:

1. FDR’s Speech on Signing the Social Security Act
2. The Social Security Act (1935)
3. Alf Landon Opposes the Social Security Act (1936)
4. Helvering v. Davis (1936)