Dbq Civil Rights Movement Analysis

The 1960s saw a rapid increase in African-American political and social activism as well as a shift in the goals, focuses, and methods of the Civil Rights Movement. First characterized by its peaceful protests, Christian philosophies of solidarity and inclusion in the face of injustice, and willingness to seek a compromise with local, state, and federal legislatures, the Civil Rights Movement during the early 1960s had both tremendous support and opposition. Nevertheless, through the patient and charismatic arguments for peace and equality made by men such as Martin Luther King Jr. of the SCLC and President John F. Kennedy, many Americans found themselves open to the idea of equal rights and opportunities for all. Over time, however, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s underwent a defining shift of goals. The movement turned from a peaceful, non-violent approach …show more content…
As a result of these changes, the Civil Rights Movement struggled to gain enough support to fully resolve the issues upon which the movement began. However, Blacks began to become more politically active. The large amount of publicity and the powerful speeches from the early sixties combined with the push for black pride in the late sixties resulted in huge turnouts of black voters in the 1968 presidential election when compared to the election of 1960 (Doc. 6). In fact, many Southern states had either a rapidly growing minority or even a majority of voters for presidential candidates that favored pro-Civil Rights legislation (Doc. 7). Although Nixon won the election of 1968, black voters and supporters of the Civil Rights Movement began to become more politically active thanks to the attention brought to issues regarding Civil Rights as well as a surge of pride in ethnicity and