| Date | November 2021 | Marks available | 9 | Reference code | 21N.1.BP.TZ0.16 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Discuss | Question number | 16 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
Note: In Source M, the word “Negro” is used to reflect the place and time of the original source. Today, in many countries, the word is no longer in common usage.
Source M Lyndon B Johnson, President of the United States (US), making a speech to the US Congress on voting rights (15 March 1965).
In Selma, Alabama, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested against the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God [a religious leader], was killed … Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote … Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes … The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath … I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote … This proposed Act will remove restrictions to voting in all elections—Federal, State and local—which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote … It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.
[Source: Johnson, L.B., 1965. ‘I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy’, The American
Promise – 1965. [online] Available at: https://www.lbjlibrary.org/object/text/special-message-congress-americanpromise-
03-15-1965. Lyndon B. Johnson Library, National Archives and Records Administration. Adapted.]
Source N Thomas Stockett, a cartoonist, depicts US space and race policies in the cartoon “No Comment”, in the American newspaper The Baltimore Afro-American (20 May 1961). The wording on the spacecraft is “U.S. space progress” and on the cart “U.S. race progress”.
[Source: Courtesy of the AFRO American Newspapers Archives.]
Source P An online article entitled “Voting Rights Act of 1965” on the website of the US television channel History (9 November 2009).
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the greatest legislative achievements of the civil rights movement … [However] voting rights activists in the South were subjected to various forms of violence. One such event occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them … Some protesters were severely beaten and bloodied … In the wake of the shocking incident, President Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation …
Blacks attempting to vote were often told by election officials that they possessed insufficient literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly …
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965 … The act banned the use of literacy tests, and provided for federal oversight [supervision] of voter registration in areas where less than 50 percent of the non-white population had registered to vote.
Although the Voting Rights Act passed, state enforcement of the law was weak, and it often was ignored outright, mainly in the South and in areas where the proportion of blacks in the population was high …
Still, the Voting Rights Act gave African-American voters the legal means to challenge voting restrictions and vastly improved voter participation.
[Source: “Voting Rights Act of 1965” © 2009, A&E Television Networks, LLC, available at https://www.history.com/topics/
black-history/voting-rights-act. All rights reserved. Used with permission.]
Using the sources and your own knowledge, discuss the contribution of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) in ensuring that African Americans could exercise their right to vote.
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 African Americans faced huge obstacles to registration and so the Voting Rights Act (1965) was needed to remove illegal barriers to voting. As a result of Selma´s peaceful protest, Johnson decided to act.
Source N Greater priority was given to the US space program than to the improvement of civil rights. The civil rights movement had stalled in 1961, showing that further progress was required to enable African Americans to vote.
Source P The Civil Rights Act (1964) did not resolve the issue of voting rights as demonstrated by events in Selma and showed that further legislation was necessary because especially in the South many of the provisions were ignored. However, the Voting Rights Act (1965), with Federal intervention, contributed to a vast improvement in voter participation for African Americans.
Own knowledge Candidates may refer to the positive contribution to voter registration brought about by the Civil Rights Act (1964). They may also offer further examples of how literacy tests were not abolished in some states and how these continued to prevent many African Americans from voting. Candidates may refer to specific protest
campaigns such as the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 that indicated a frustration with the limited contribution of the Civil Rights Act (1964) to voting rights.
Although the Voting Rights Act (1965) resulted in more African Americans being registered to vote, the total was still only around 35% of eligible voters. There were further attempts by the federal government to enforce the abolition of the poll tax. Still, candidates may mention that dissatisfaction remained and link this to the outbreak of the Watts Riots shortly after the Voting Rights Act (1965) was passed.
Examiners report
Most scripts showed an awareness of the need to give a focused response and refer to / use the sources to analyse the question. Many responses also had a degree of development. Often candidates were able to use the sources to offer an assessment of, for example, why Germany attacked Poland in September 1939 for Question 12, or to discuss the contribution of the Civil Rights and the Voting Act in ensuring that African Americans could exercise their right to vote for Question 16. Furthermore, there was some improvement in the number of candidates effectively applying and synthesizing their knowledge in conjunction with a focused use of the sources.
However, some responses were limited by a wholly descriptive approach and some lacked clear and consistent focus on the set question. A number of responses referred to the source/s but did not effectively use the content to develop or support the analysis. In addition, a number of responses lacked the inclusion of relevant knowledge, and a sizeable minority of candidates did not respond at all to the final question or gave a very limited response.
