PT-3 MAY 2014

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PT-3 MAY 2014

Short Answer

Performance Task #3
US History-11

The Civil Rights Movement in America
The Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

Historical Context:
Until the spring of 1963, the protests against institutionalized racial segregation throughout the South and other parts of the United States received only occasional national coverage. But beginning May 2 of that year, thousands of mostly African-American children peacefully protested segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, making the nation focus its attention on the violent opposition to integration taking place in what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had called “the most segregated city in America.” This Children’s Crusade, also referred to as the Children’s Marches or the Children’s Campaign, drew hateful speech and brutal force from the Ku Klux Klan, Birmingham authorities, other groups and citizens. These demonstrations by Birmingham’s youth, along with countless other acts of civil disobedience [over the next year] by protesters around the nation, prompted the federal government to ultimately pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act in July, prohibiting racial, religious and gender discrimination in all public facilities.

Additional links that resource the Birmingham Childrens Crusade:
Wikepedia Encyclopedia of Alabama Biography Channel The Childrens Crusade

Source #1: Reading and Annotating

*   Preview the texts, noticing the sources and focus questions at the top of each one.
*   Read each text. Annotate the texts as needed in order to answer the Focus Questions. Use a minimum of 4 sources in the written response (Part II).
*   Listening and Speaking (optional): Share and compare your annotations and Focus Questions responses with a partner.
*   Respond to the Annotation and Evidence Chart as needed, writing one answer to each question with one piece of evidence.

If our drive was to be successful, we must involve the students of the community. Even though we realized that involving teenagers and high school students would bring down upon us a heavy fire of criticism, we felt that we needed this dramatic new dimension. . . .Our fight, if won, would benefit people of all ages. But most of all we were inspired with the desire to give to our young a true sense of their own stake in freedom and justice.
"Children understood the stakes"
SCLC staff members. . .began visiting colleges and high schools in the area. They invited students to attend after-school meetings at churches. The word spread fast, and the response from Birmingham's youngsters exceeded our fondest dreams. By the fifties and by the hundreds, these youngsters attended mass meetings and training sessions. They listened eagerly as we talked of bringing freedom to Birmingham, not in some distant time, but right now. We taught them the philosophy of nonviolence. . . . Looking back, it is clear that the introduction of Birmingham's children into the campaign was one of the wisest moves we made. It brought a new impact to the crusade, and the impetus that we needed to win the struggle.
The children themselves had the answer to the misguided sympathies of the press. One of the most ringing replies came from a child of no more than eight who walked with her mother one day in a demonstration. An amused policeman leaned down to her and said with mock gruffness: "What do you want?"
The child looked into his eyes, unafraid, and gave her answer.
"Freedom," she said.
Clayborne Carson, ed. (1998). The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, Inc.

dimension: element	fondest: most wonderful	mock gruffness: fake grumpiness
impetus: motivation; push	sympathies: understandings

Source 1: Excerpted from: (1998) The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Focus Question: What are Martin Luther King, Jr.’s perspectives on including youth in the Civil Rights demonstrations? Support your response(s) with evidence from his autobiography.

Essay

Source #2 Reading and Annotating

Jessie Shepherd, then 16, was soaked when she was loaded up in a paddy wagon. “I was told not to participate,” says Shepherd, now a retired clinical diet technician. “But I was tired of the injustice.”
“I couldn’t understand why there had to be a colored fountain and a white fountain,” says Shepherd. “Why couldn’t I drink out the fountain that other little kids drank out of? As I got older, I understood that’s just the way it was, because my skin was black, and we were treated differently because of that.”
So she marched.
Soon the city’s jails were so overcrowded that students were sent to the local fair ground. They slept on cots and sang freedom songs while waiting for movement leaders to raise money for their bail.
“I didn’t anticipate the outcome being so drastic,” says Shepherd.

Source Daily Beast: How the children of Birmingham changed the Civil Rights Movement

paddy wagon: large police car which can hold several people	anticipate: predict

Source 2: Excerpted from: (2013, May 2) How the Children of Birmingham Changed the Civil Rights Movement. The Daily Beast.

Focus Question: What are Jessie Shepard’s reasons for choosing to march in the Children’s Crusade? Support your responses with evidence from the online news article.

Source #3 Reading and Annotating

Birmingham, Ala.-Snarling police dogs chased away crowds of Negroes and fire hoses flattened youthful demonstrators as hundreds tried to stage anti-segregation marches.
. . .Police jailed an estimated 200 Negroes on charges of parading without a permit. Nearly 700 demonstrators were arrested Thursday, bringing the total of arrests to 1,300 since the desegregation campaign began April 3.
. . . In Washington, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy issued a statement in which he said, “continued refusal to grant equal rights and opportunities to Negroes makes increasing turmoil inevitable.”
But he went on to question the methods used by Negro leaders and to say, “School children participating in street demonstrations is dangerous business. An injured, maimed, or dead child is a price none of us can afford to pay.”
Kennedy spoke of “very real and deep injustices” that he said the city’s Negro and white communities now have been inflicted on Birmingham Negroes but added: “I hope for the sake of everyone that this can be done in meetings, in good-faith negotiations and not in the streets.”
(1963, May 4). 200 More Jailed in Birmingham: Dogs, Fire Hoses Used to Disperse Negro Marchers. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved from

Online resources

turmoil: extreme hardships inevitable: unavoidable inflicted: imposed

Source 3: Excerpted from: (1963, May 4) 200 More Jailed in Birmingham: Dogs, Fire Hoses Used to Disperse Negro Marchers. St. Petersburg Times.

Focus Question: What are Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s perspectives on the treatment of African-American communities and of using children in Civil Rights demonstrations? Support your responses with evidence from the newspaper article.

Source #4 Reading and Annotating

Malcolm X, the Eastern leader of the Black Muslim movement, denounced today the use of Negro children in the Birmingham demonstrations. “Real men don’t put their children on the firing line.” The Black Muslim leader criticized the campaigns of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an exercise in futility and an erroneous approach to the problem of race relation. The Black Muslims advocate the complete separation of the Negro and white races as the only rational solution.

Handler, M.S. (1963, May 11) Malcolm X Terms Dr. King’s Tactics Futile. New York

denounced: criticized futility: uselessness erroneous: mistaken advocate: promote

Source 4: Excerpted from: (1963, May 11) Malcolm X Terms Dr. King’s Tactics Futile. New York Times.

Focus Question: What are Malcolm X’s perspectives on using children in the Civil Rights demonstrations? Support your responses with evidence from the newspaper article.

Source #5 Reading and Annotating

The Ku Klux Klan has helped elect Eugene "Bull" Connor as Birmingham's police chief. Connor is about as big a bully as the South has ever produced. Besides that, he is a racist. Birmingham's black citizens march, protest, and demonstrate. They want the same rights as everyone else. They want to be able to eat in any restaurant, go to any school. They want to vote. They want an end to segregation. Those are all their civil rights. They demonstrate peacefully. Bull Connor sends attack dogs. He says, "All you gotta do is tell them you're going to bring the dogs. Look at 'em run. I want to see the dogs work."
Connor calls out his police dogs. Firemen turn on high-pressure hoses. When the water hits the children, they are thrown on the ground and roll screaming down the street. Police dogs bite three teenagers so badly they have to be taken to the hospital. Seventy-five children are squeezed into a cell built for eight prisoners. Television cameras capture, and broadcast worldwide, what is happening to Birmingham's children. Decent people everywhere are outraged. Most haven't realized how bad things are for most blacks in the segregated South. Now they can see for themselves.

Hakim, Joy. (2002). Freedom-A History of US: Freedom Has Come To Birmingham. Ava

Source 5: Excerpted from: Hakim, Joy. (2002). Freedom-A History of US: Freedom Has Come To Birmingham.

Focus Questions: What are Eugene “Bull” Connor’s perspectives using youth in the Civil Rights demonstrations? What are the effects of Connor’s decisions?
Support your responses with evidence from the online U.S. History textbook.

Source #6 Reading and Annotating

“The most famous photograph in the history of the American civil rights movement was taken on May 3, 1963, by Bill Hudson, a photographer for the Associated Press. . . .The next day, the New York Times published it above the fold across three columns on the front page of its Saturday paper, as did virtually every major paper in the country. . . . The boy in Bill Hudson’s photograph is Walter Gadsden. He was a sophomore at Parker High in Birmingham, six foot tall and fifteen years old. He wasn’t a marcher. He was a spectator.”
Gladwell, Malcolm. (2013, October 1). David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. Hachette Book Group.

Hailey, Foster. (1963, May 4). Dogs and Hoses Repulse Negroes at Birmingham. New York Times.

Source #6: Photograph from: (1963, May 4). Dogs and Hoses Repulse Negroes at Birmingham. New York Times.

Focus Question: What is portrayed in this photograph? Support your responses with evidence from the photograph.

Directions for Part II: Writing

Introduction

o In your own words, describe the role of children and adolescents in the Civil Rights demonstrations.

o Introduce the different perspectives on this issue in Birmingham, Alabama.

Body Paragraphs

o Include references from at least 4 of the sources, explaining the different perspectives on including children and adolescents in the Birmingham demonstrations.

o Support the different perspectives with evidence from the texts.

Concluding Paragraph(s)

o Evaluate the choice of including children and adolescents in the Birmingham demonstrations.

o Express your standpoint regarding the role of youth in social movements.

Writing Prompt (Respond on the right)

The 51st anniversary of the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, is approaching and you have been tasked with writing a magazine article of the May, 1963 event. As a journalist for Time magazine, you will write a multi-paragraph article explaining the different perspectives on including children and adolescents in the Birmingham demonstrations. You will evaluate the choice of including children and adolescents in the demonstrations and create a standpoint regarding the role of youth in social movements.