Comparative Questions

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Document Links

Document 28-1: New Left Students Seek Democratic Social Change

Document 28-2: Martin Luther King Jr. Explains Nonviolent Resistance

Document 28-3: George C. Wallace Denounces the Civil Rights Movement

Document 28-4: Black Power

Document 28-5: Equal Rights for Women

  1. Why did the aspirations for a just American society expressed by Students for a Democratic Society, Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago SNCC, and NOW outrage George C. Wallace?
  2. Judging from the documents in this chapter, how would King have responded to the arguments for black power? How and why did the arguments of the advocates of black power differ from King's analysis and from the Port Huron Statement?
  3. In what ways did NOW's call for the reeducation of women compare with SDS's call for a “new left,” SNCC's advocacy of black culture, and King's belief in nonviolence? How might the challenges faced by NOW have been different from the adversity faced by SNCC and Martin Luther King Jr.? What accounts for the differences?
  4. Each of the documents in this chapter makes assumptions about the state of American society and what it means to be an American. To what extent do the documents agree and disagree about these matters? Each document called for changes in the state of American society. Did the documents also advocate changes in what it meant to be an American? If so, what changes did they seek? Why?