Primary Source Evaluation Assignment #3: Civil Rights Movement
Read your textbook about the civil rights movement. Then read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and “Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton. In thinking about the assignment, you might want to ask yourself some of the following questions:
How does one decide which laws are unjust? What are the best ways to deal with such laws?
How does King’s approach to achieving civil rights differ from Carmichael and Hamilton’s? What goals do they have in common? What goals separate them?
What intellectual influences can be detected in King’s thought? Carmichael and Hamilton’s?
What issues in today’s society could be seen as similar to the issues King and Carmichael/Hamilton were writing about?
Write a paper on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, addressing the issue of goals and strategy. What is the historical background to both documents? Why would there be a split among the leadership of the civil rights movement over how to achieve their goals? Which approach is best?
You must cite your sources, and list them at the end of your paper as a List of Works Cited. If you have any questions regarding how to format your paper, please consult the Purdue University web site explaining MLA format. Please do not “borrow” material from the web without providing proper citations and enclosing direct quotations in quotation marks. Otherwise, it will be considered plagiarism, and the penalties will be severe. Typed, double-spaced, 800-1000 words.
Note: before sending the assignment, you must rename the file in the following format: LastnameFirstname-papernumber.doc. Example: JacksonChristopher-paper2.doc. If the file is not properly named, it will not be accepted. Please submit before midnight on the due date to Turnitin.
On Stokeley Carmichael:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Carmichael-Stokely.html