| Date | November 2018 | Marks available | 9 | Reference code | 18N.1.BP.TZ0.16 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Evaluate | Question number | 16 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
Source M
“White Citizens’ Councils”, an online article from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
at Stanford University in the US (date unknown).
In 1954, white segregationists throughout the South had created White Citizens’ Councils (WCCs) … Martin Luther King faced WCC attacks as soon as the Montgomery bus boycott began, and was a target of these groups throughout his career.
In January 1956, a month after the start of the boycott, the mayor of Montgomery joined the WCC, publicly declaring “I think every right-minded person in Montgomery, Alabama and the South should do the same. We must make certain that negroes are not allowed to force their demands on us” ... By the next month WCC membership had doubled. The WCC attempted multiple strategies to stop the boycott, from prosecuting the boycott organizers to pressuring insurance agencies throughout the South to cancel policies for church-owned vehicles. King appealed to President Eisenhower to investigate violence carried out by WCC members against the boycott organizers whose homes were bombed … The attorney general [the US government’s chief lawyer] responded to King’s appeal, writing that “the activities of the White Citizens’ Council do not appear to indicate violations of federal criminal statutes.”
Source N
Laura Gray, an artist and member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, depicts
the struggle for civil rights during the Montgomery bus boycott in the cartoon
“Freedom is Rising in the South” in the US magazine The Militant (26 March
1956).
[Source: Laura Gray/The Militant]
Source O
Jamie Wilson, a professor of history, writing in the student reference book
The Civil Rights Movement (2013).
The boycott was an overwhelming success … Ministers and activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to direct the protest, coordinate transportation for boycotters, garner [gain] support from individuals and organizations in and out of the state, and enter into negotiations with the bus company and city officials. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was elected president of the organization … His acceptance of the position was the beginning of his career as a civil rights leader ... The mayor and the city officials claimed that the separation of the races was ordained [ordered] by God and social custom, and white Montgomerians retaliated against the boycotters with harassment and violence … When they were not taunted by white residents on their way to and from work, black boycotters were harassed by telephone ... Police officers stopped, fined, and arrested car pool drivers on trumped-up [invented] charges.
The boycott ended after 381 days and was a key victory in the Civil Rights Movement. Local people, the educated and uneducated, the wealthy and the poor, demonstrated to people around the country, especially to those in other southern cities, that African Americans could organize themselves to abolish a system that had oppressed them for decades.
[Source: Republished with permission of ABC-CLIO Inc, from Jamie J. Wilson, Civil Rights Movement
(Landmarks of the American Mosaic), Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, January 24, 2013;
permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.]
Source P
Robert Graetz’s letter to the editor of the US current affairs magazine Time
(22 December 1955).
Dear Sir:
I am writing this letter to you, because I have long been impressed with the fair and unbiased treatment you give in your news stories.
There is a story in the making here in Montgomery. I am referring to the protest which negroes (and many whites) of Montgomery are making against the local bus company ... The local newspapers have consistently printed one-sided stories about developments in this protest. They have at times omitted [left out] relevant facts that would have put a much more favorable light on what the negroes are asking for …
I am a white Lutheran minister, serving a negro congregation. I cannot even give my own church members a ride in my car without fear of being stopped by the police and accused of running a taxi … If you want a good look at the way a one-way press and a one-race police force band together to discredit fifty thousand people who are tired of being treated like animals on the city buses … then I urge you to send a reporter to Montgomery as soon as possible. …
I respectfully request that the contents of this letter be kept confidential until such time as they have been verified [checked] by you.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Graetz
Using the sources and your own knowledge, evaluate the claim that the success of the Montgomery bus boycott represented a turning point in the struggle for African–American civil rights in the period from 1954 to 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 indicates the burgeoning power of the White Citizens’ Councils and refers to federal indifference towards the struggle for civil rights. This suggests that the bus boycott was not a turning point.
Source N
The cartoon’s depiction of a giant African–American man beginning to break the bonds of discrimination in defiance of the puny efforts of the white supremacists to keep him held down could suggest that the Montgomery bus boycott represented a very important stage in the struggle for African–American civil rights during this period. The caption may suggest that the bus boycott was part of a pre-existing struggle, and therefore it was not necessarily a turning point.
Source O
The source refers to the ultimate success of the bus boycott, claiming that its success represented a key moment in the civil rights struggle and inspiring African–American protesters in other southern cities. Also, this source refers to Martin Luther King Jr’s emergence in Montgomery as someone who went on to play a pivotal role as leader of the civil rights movement. However, the account of the opposition to the boycotters could suggest that there was a long way to go.
Source P
The bus boycott inspired Graetz to take the initiative in contacting Time magazine and thus increased national awareness of the struggle for civil rights. It could be argued that this was evidence of a shift in how civil rights were perceived.
Own knowledge
Candidates may provide further details on the impact of the Montgomery bus boycott to argue that the boycott represented a turning point in as far as it inspired subsequent actions such as Little Rock (1957) and the Greensboro sit-ins (1960). Candidates may also argue that the March on Washington (August 1963) and Martin Luther King’s subsequent “I have a dream …” speech was the turning point as it led to the government’s support of civil rights legislation as seen in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Other turning points could be focused on, for example, the Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964) and the Selma Campaign (1965), which led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The rationale for choosing these must be given.
Alternatively, it could be argued that the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision was the key event in the struggle for civil rights. Candidates could suggest that subsequent events show that the Montgomery bus boycott on its own was not a turning point, and that other events could be deemed more significant.
