Civil+Rights+Discussion+Questions

We'll use the following questions to guide our discussion today. If you can answer these questions, you should be in good shape for the quiz during our next class!

How did Kennedy and Johnson deal with the civil rights issue? What were their goals and were these goals actualized by the end of the decade?

Was the nonviolent civil rights movement of the 1960s a success? Why or why not? Can it be argued that the violent protest of the civil rights movement were more successful than the nonviolent protests?

American blacks had suffered and often protested segregation and discrimination since the end of Reconstruction, but without result. Why did the civil rights movement finally begin to gain public attention and influence in the 1950s?

Besides Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott, which were the most important breakthroughs in civil rights and race relations of the late 1940s and 1950s?

Argue for or against: American politics, society and culture in the 1950s were all stagnant and narrow and did not address the real social problems facing the country.

How did the civil rights movement move from its difficult beginnings in the 1950s and early 1960s to great successes in 1964-64? Why did it encounter increasing criticism and opposition from both black militants and the forces of white backlash (i.e. George Wallace) so soon after its greatest triumphs?

Compare and contrast Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X as black leaders. Was the emphasis on black pride and self-determination that Malcolm represented really opposed to King’s ideals or did it just address a different set of problems more deeply rooted in northern ghettos than in southern segregation? Why did so many blacks and whites begin to criticize King’s emphasis on absolute nonviolence in the freedom struggle?