Assignment #17

 

ACIE American History - Cambridge International Examinations

 

Mr. Anthony Perno and Mr. Victor Wisniski – American Senior High School – 2009/2010 School Year

 

Syllabus Excerpt: IV Civil Rights, 1895-1968

 

. . . End of racial discrimination in schools, the Brown case and the Supreme Court. The rise to prominence of Martin Luther King through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the tactic of non-violent protest against segregation. Militant approach of other groups: Malcolm X and the Black Muslims, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panthers. The Civil Rights Act (1964) and the 24th Amendment. Assassinations of King and Malcolm X. The 1967 riots and Johnson’s civil rights policies. The civil rights of Native Americans. Assessment of the extent of gains made in civil rights by the end of the 1960s.

 

·         Reading Assignment: America, Past and Present, Chapter #29, Affluence and Anxiety, “The Struggle over Civil Rights,”  pages 849-855

 

·         Reading Assignment: America, Past and Present, Chapter #30, The Turbulent Sixties, “The New Frontier at Home,”  and “Let Us Continue,” pages 864-873

 

·         Reading Assignment: America, Past and Present, Chapter #30, The Turbulent Sixties, “Years of Turmoil” ‘Black Power,’ pages 882-884

 

·         Reading Assignment: Law and Society, Bakke v. Regents of the University of California: The Question of Affirmative Action, pages 956-958

 

·         Assignment: Using the above reading assignment, the student will prepare to answer the following essay questions. (One question will be chosen randomly the day of the exam.) The essay should encompass all pertinent syllabus topics.

 

·         Essay Questions:

 

1.     Assess the effectiveness of the different tactics used by the various branches of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

2.     Explain the principal factors which secured successes for the Civil Rights Movement between 1950 and 1968.

 

3.     Analyze the factors which led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 

4.     Examine the contention that President Lyndon Johnson did far more in practice than Martin Luther King for the civil rights of African-Americans.

 

5.     Examine the changing role of African-Americans in the nation’s economic, social, and political life from 1900 to 1968.