Social Movements

Part One – General Questions – Address at least THREE of these questions (12 Points – 400+)

1. When prejudice and racism are supported by both custom and law, what can be done to create a more inclusive society? How do you explain why there is often so much resistance to change?
2. How does nonviolent direct-action expose injustice? Why was it such an effective strategy for bringing about change during the civil rights movement?
3. What role did the media play in the Freedom Rides? How do media shape our understanding of the issues of our time?
4. What does the story of the Freedom Riders suggest about the role of citizens in shaping democracy?

Part Two – Non-Violence as a Strategy – Address at least 2 of these questions (12 Points – 400+)

1. What precedents did the Freedom Riders build upon? Do you think the successes of nonviolent campaigns could have happened without the legal victories that other civil rights organizations had won in the courts?

• James Farmer describes the political calculations of the Freedom Riders this way:

If we were right in assuming that the federal government did not enforce federal law because of its fear of reprisals from the South, then what we had to do was to make it more dangerous politically for the federal government not to enforce federal law.

How did the activists hope to make it “dangerous” for the government not to enforce federal law?

• What do you think James Farmer means when he says that the Freedom Rides were “not civil disobedience, really, because we would be doing merely what the Supreme Court said we had a right to do”? Do you agree with him?

Part Three – Past vs. Present (12 Points – 400+)

Compare and contrast the strategies of the Freedom Riders and the work of the Civil Rights Movement to that of the #blacklivesmatter movement. You will need to research the BLM movement. Be sure to use CH 16 as your reference for this response.

GRADING NOTE:

Thirty-six points are available for the content presented. An additional 4 points will be awarded for quality of the presentation of content. Points will be lost for not meeting length requirements and grammatical errors.