| Date | November 2017 | Marks available | 9 | Reference code | 17N.1.BP.TZ0.16 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Examine | Question number | 16 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
Source M
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former US Navy officer and a sociologist who was Assistant Secretary of Labor for President Lyndon B Johnson, writing in the report The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (March 1965).
Delinquency and Crime
The combined impact of poverty, failure, and isolation among Negro youth has had the predictable outcome in a disastrous delinquency and crime rate … It is probable that at present, a majority of the crimes against the person are committed by Negroes. There is, of course, no absolute evidence; inference can only be made from arrest and prison population statistics … In Chicago in 1963, three-quarters of the persons arrested for such crimes were Negro; in Detroit, the proportions were the same. In 1960, 37% of all persons in Federal and State prisons were Negro. In that year, 56% of the homicide and 57% of the assault offenders committed to State institutions were Negro …
The Armed Forces
The ultimate mark of inadequate preparation for life is the failure rate on the Armed Forces mental test …A grown young man who cannot pass this test is in trouble. 56% of Negroes fail it. This is a rate almost four times that of the whites … Service in the United States Armed Forces is the only experience open to the Negro American in which he is truly treated as an equal … In food, dress, housing, pay, work—the Negro in the Armed Forces is equal and is treated that way.
Source N
James Patterson, a professor of history, describes some features and events of the civil rights movement in the US academic journal History Now (2006).
[In the 1960s] many young black people became impatient with the slow progress of legal cases … they believed that direct action protest, especially if it provoked violence by white extremists, was the most productive means of civil rights activity … By May 1961, the first interracial freedom rides from Washington DC, to New Orleans were underway, designed to force southern officials to honor a recent Supreme Court decision that had called for the ending of racial segregation in interstate bus terminals. Violence quickly followed, as one bus was firebombed in Alabama and its riders were injured … These bloody confrontations attracted considerable public attention. They also revealed that the Kennedy administration, concerned mainly with Cold War issues, was reluctant to jeopardize [threaten] its political strength among whites in the South and southerners in the Congress. Kennedy was slow to recognize the moral passion of civil rights demonstrators or to employ force in order to stem the implacable [uncompromising] resistance and rage of many southern white people, police, and politicians.
[Source: Patterson, James T., The Civil Rights Movement: Major Events and Legacies. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)]
Source O
Victor (Vicky) Weisz, a political cartoonist, depicts two senators outside the US Congress responding to the civil rights programme of President Lyndon B Johnson [LBJ] in the cartoon “Now, we mustn’t let him rush us into things!” for the British newspaper the Evening Standard (29 November 1963).
Note: The text on the placard is “Half the way with L.B.J.” and the text on the newspaper is “‘We have talked long enough about equal rights. We have talked for 100 years …’ – President Lyndon Johnson”.
[Source: Victor (Vicky) Weisz, ‘Half the way with L.B.J’, The Evening Standard,
29 November 1963. Reproduced with permission.]
Using the sources and your own knowledge, examine the view that government inaction in the US was the main obstacle to the establishment of civil rights between 1954 and 1965.
Markscheme
Apply the markbands that provide the “best fit” to the responses given by candidates and award credit wherever it is possible to do so. The following material is an indication of what candidates may elect to write about in their responses. It is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive and no set answer is required. While it is expected that there will be coverage of at least two of the sources, candidates are not required to refer to all four sources in their responses.
Indicative content
Source M
The source refers to high levels of crime in the African–American community and suggests that this was likely to foster discrimination. The source also indicates the US armed forces were unique in treating African Americans on equal terms with whites. This latter point suggests that the US government was actively encouraging parity of status.
Source N
This source indicates that civil rights progress was delayed because of a fear of a violent southern white backlash. The source also suggests that the delivery of civil rights was delayed because of a focus on Cold War issues. However, the consequent publicity contributed to support for civil rights.
Source O
The cartoon emphasizes the cautious attitude to civil rights, particularly the opposition likely to be encountered in Congress. On the other hand, the placard suggests that some progress might be achieved and that Lyndon B Johnson was keen to advance civil rights.
Own knowledge
Reference may be made to congressional opposition and obstruction of civil rights legislation, and to the FBI’s efforts to undermine the civil rights movement. It could also be made to a discontinuity between the federal government’s intentions and actions taken by state governments.
Further details could be provided on the actions taken by civil rights protestors, for example, in February 1960, CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) student sit-ins began. In August 1963 Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech at the end of the March on Washington. In March 1965, the Selma march took place, and the civil rights marchers met serious violence.
Candidates may refer to the opposition encountered by the civil rights protestors, for example, the actions of Governor Fabius and Bull Connor in Birmingham 1963. Ku Klux Klan brutality and police brutality could also be mentioned. Further, in November 1962 President Kennedy ordered the ending of segregation in Federal housing, in November 1963 Governor George Wallace blocked integration in the University of Alabama, in June 1964 three civil rights activists were murdered in Mississippi, and in August 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed, abolishing discrimination against minorities.
