Name: _________________________________________ Period: _______ Date: _______________
Original activity credit: Nancy Thomas, LCPS
Document Analysis Activity: Radicalism of the Civil Rights Movement
Directions: With your table group, close read the documents, then answer the questions.
1. Your group will be assigned one document. Divide the questions for this document among your group.
2. Individually close read the document and answer your question(s).
3. Share and discuss your answers with your group.
4. Report out your answers to the whole class. You may appoint a group speaker or have each person share.
5. As each group reports out, write the answers to the questions that they have on your copy.
6. Answer the essential question(s).
Document #1
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963
[Link] (accessedn 4/23/25)
“…But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here…
…Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…
…One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is
untimely. ...
…Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have
not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the
ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see,
with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights…”
Questions for Document #1
1. Why was Dr. King in Birmingham?
2. Why is he in jail?
3. What was this written in response to?
4. What problem does he have with “Wait”?
5. What is the direct-action campaign that he is referring to?
6. Who considers it to not be “well-timed”? Why?
7. What is meant by “Justice too long delayed is justice denied’?
Document #2
Medgar Evers: Obituary and famous quotation, 1963
[Link] [Link]
[Link], [Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
Questions for Document #2
1. Who was Medgar Evers?
2. What is meant by his words?
3. What impact did his assassination, on June 12, 1963 have?
Document #3
th
16 Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, Alabama, Sunday, September 15, 1963
[Link]
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
The four girls [pictured below] were murdered
in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in an
act of terrorism by a Klan related group on Sept.
15, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. It came soon
after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom (Aug. 28, 1963.)
Carole Robertson, Carol Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley
Questions for Document #3
1. Where is this?
2. What is going on in the picture? What details support this?
3. Who are the four children in the picture?
4. How are they related to the picture above?
5. Who was using violence?
6. To whom was the violence directed? Why?
7. Who is the audience for both pictures? What do you think the reaction of that audience was?
Document #4
The Ballot or the Bullet Speech, Malcolm X, April 3, 1964
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
“No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the
22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing
here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver — no, not I. I’m speaking as a
victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream;
I see an American nightmare.”
Questions for Document #4
1. Who was Malcom X?
2. What does he consider himself?
3. What future does he see for himself? Why?
4. Who is the intended audience? What reaction would that audience have?
5. What then do you think is meant by the title?
6. What happened to Malcolm X? (Consider: [Link]
Document #5
“And We Shall Overcome”: President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Message to Congress, March 15,1965
[Link] [Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
…And we shall overcome….
…The bill I am presenting to you will be known as a civil rights bill. But in a larger sense, most of the program I am
recommending is a civil rights program. Its object is to open the city of hope to all people of all races, because all
Americans just must have the right to vote, and we are going to give them that right.
All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship, regardless of race, and they are going to have those
privileges of citizenship regardless of race….
Questions for Document #5
1. Who was the audience?
2. Why did LBJ need to give a Special Message to Congress? What was this in response to?
3. How did LBJ very specifically reach out to the African American Community? What do you suppose the
reaction by that community was?
4. What was LBJ’s plan?
5. What legislation did Congress pass?
Document #6
Black Power Speech, Stokely Carmichael, October 29, 1966
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
…[32] We have taken all the myths of this country and we’ve found them to be nothing but downright lies. This
country told us that if we worked hard we would succeed, and if that were true we would own this country lock,
stock, and barrel (applause)–lock, stock, and barrel–lock, stock, and barrel. It is we who have picked the cotton for
nothing. It is we who are the maids in the kitchens of liberal white people. It is we who are the janitors, the
porters, the elevator men. It is we who sweep up your college floors. Yes, it is we who are the hardest workers
and the lowest paid, and the lowest paid….
We are on the move for our liberation. We have been tired of trying to prove things to white people. We are tired
of trying to explain to white people that we’re not going to hurt them. We are concerned with getting the things
we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. The question is, can white people allow for that
in this country?
… The question is, will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country? If that
does not happen, brothers and sisters, we have no choice but to say very clearly, “Move over, or we goin’ to move
on over you.” Thank you.
Questions for Document #6
1. What is the myth that Carmichael is upset with? Why is he upset?
2. Why is he upset with white people?
3. Carmichael says that the question is, “Can white people allow for that in this county?
a. To what is he referring?
b. What are the potential consequences if white society does not comply?
Document #7
Detroit Race Riots, July 1967
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
The Intersection of 12th Street and Clairmount, Saturday, July 23, 1967
Image Courtesy of the Detroit Free Press; Image Ownership: Public Domain
Date: 1967-07-24. Photographer: UPI Telephoto [Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
The Detroit Race Riot in 1967 was one of the most violent urban revolts in the 20th century. It came as an
immediate response to police brutality but underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools and
rising black unemployment helped drive the anger of the rioters. On Sunday evening, July 22, the Detroit Police
Vice Squad officers raided an after hours “blind pig,” an unlicensed bar on the corner of 12th Street and
Clairmount Avenue in the center of the city’s oldest and poorest black neighborhood. A party at the bar was in
progress to celebrate the return of two black servicemen from Vietnam. Although officers had expected a few
patrons would be inside they found and arrested all 82 people attending the party. As they were being
transported from the scene by police, a crowd of about 200 people gathered outside agitated by rumors that
police used excessive force during the 12th Street bar raid. Shortly after 5:00 a.m., an empty bottle was thrown
into the rear window of a police car, and then a waste basket was thrown through a storefront window. …
In the five days and nights of violence 33 blacks and 10 whites were killed, 1,189 were injured and over 7,200
people were arrested. Approximately 2,500 stores were looted and the total property damage was estimated at
about $32 million. Until the riots following the death of Dr. Martin Luther King in April 1968, the Detroit Race Riot
stood as the largest urban uprising of the 1960s.
Questions for Document #7
1. Where were these photos taken?
2. What is going on in the pictures?
3. What is the crowd doing?
4. What are the police doing?
5. Why are the people running in the bottom photo?
6. What is written on the window in the bottom photo?
7. What do you think precipitated the violence? Who do you think is at fault? Why?
8. What do you think the reaction of the white and black communities was? Of the Nation as a whole?
Document #8
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Report), 1967
[Link]
1967/ (accessed 4/23/25)
• White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities
since the end of World War II. Among the ingredients of this mixture are:
• Pervasive discrimination and segregation in employment, education and housing, which have resulted in
the continuing exclusion of great numbers of Negroes from the benefits of economic progress.
• * The frustrations of powerlessness have led some Negroes to the conviction that there is no effective
alternative to violence as a means of achieving redress of grievances, and of "moving the system." These
frustrations are reflected in alienation and hostility toward the institutions of law and government and the
white society which controls them, and in the reach toward racial consciousness and solidarity reflected in
the slogan "Black Power.”
• To continue present policies is to make permanent the division of our country into two societies; one,
largely Negro and poor, located in the central cities; the other, predominantly white and affluent, located in
the suburbs and in outlying areas.
Questions for Document #8
1. When was the Kerner Report?
2. Who would the audience be? Why?
3. What were the findings of the Kerner Commission? Be as specific as you can?
4. What does “Black Power” represent?
5. What will the result be if the nation does not change?
Document #9
Reaction to the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
A woman crosses the street near Century Furniture and Clothing, at the northwest corner of Western
Avenue and Madison Street, which was set on fire in an outbreak of violence on April 5, 1968. [Chicago]
An aerial view of the West Side shows smoke rising from several fires ignited by rioters along Madison and
Leavitt streets, west to Spaulding Avenue, on April 5, 1968. [Chicago]
A young person points at members of the Illinois National Guard on duty in the area of Albany Avenue, south
of Madison Street, on April 6, 1968. [Chicago]
Buildings burning in the background, April 5, 1968. [Washington, DC]
[Link] (accessed
4/23/25)
National Guardsmen patrolling a burning section of Washington, D.C. - April 1968. [Washington, DC]
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
Questions for Document #9
1. What was the reaction to the King assassination?
2. Why was this the reaction?
3. What ended?
4. Was the Kerner Commission correct?
Document #10
Police Intimidation and Use of Force, Bobby Seale, August 24, 1968
[Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
“KPIX Eyewitness News report from August 24th 1968 featuring a press conference by Bobby Seale, in which he
reflects on the use of intimidation and brute force by National Guard and police against public dissent in Chicago
and elsewhere.”
Click on the link. Listen to Seale’s responses to the questions about police intimidation and use of force. Then
listen to it a second time, pausing to answer the questions.
Questions for Document #10
1. What event is he talking about? Who are Humphrey and Daley?
2. What was going on outside the convention? Be specific.
3. Why is he not surprised about police brutality?
4. Who did the Republicans nominate? To whom did they appeal? Who won in 1968?
Corroborating Questions
1. How is LBJ’s push for a voting rights act a response to King’s contention that “justice delayed is justice
denied”? How is this a conclusion of an over three century wait for civil rights?
2. Does Stokely Carmichael also see an American nightmare, as Malcom X did? If so, what is it?
3. What was the nightmare at the 16th Street Baptist Church?
4. Who is using violence in the early documents? What changes in the later documents of the Race Riots and
H. Rap Brown with regards to the use of violence?
5. Is black militancy an action or a reaction to white society? How so?
6. How are the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing and the King assassination related?
7. Given the King assassination and the subsequent burning of the cities, was the Kerner Commission
correct?
Upon signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lyndon Johnson is said to have told aide Bill Moyers, “I think we have
just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.”
-James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, March 2004; [Link] (accessed 4/23/25)
8. Why would Johnson make this statement?
9. Did that come to fruition? Why? How do you know?
10. How does the radicalism of the Civil Rights Movement that was to come play into your answer in question
2?
Essential Question
How and why did the Civil Rights movement become radicalized during the 1960s?