Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement Term Paper

The Reverend King’s initial notable involvement with civil rights came with his leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955–1956. In 1957 he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and launched peaceful demonstrations against segregation in the South, notably in Birmingham (1963) and Selma (1965) Alabama. The latter, which met with violent resistance, helped the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965). The March on Washington, D.C., in August 1963, an event that drew 250,000, was the high point of King’s career. The following year he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Later he denounced the war in Vietnam and led peaceful protest marches in the North. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Analyze Dr. King’s philosophy and use of nonviolence.
2. Discuss the effects of the Selma, Alabama, protest on the civil rights movement.
3. Discuss the effect of media coverage on the civil rights movement.
4. Discuss African American opposition to Dr. King’s philosophy and tactics.
5. Analyze the achievements and failures of Dr. King.

Suggested Sources: See entries 9, 60, 61, and 72–73 for related items.

REFERENCE SOURCES

The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Civil Rights Movement. Mark Grossman. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1994. Useful alphabetically arranged reference source treating issues, events, and personalities.

Black/White Relations in American History: An Annotated Bibliography. Leslie V. Tischauser. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Scarecrow, 1997. Comprehensive bibliography of black-white relations in the United States since 1945.
Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Present. Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszalek, eds. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992. Well-written source of information on personalities, legislation, print media, events, and other items; more than 800 entries by numerous contributors.

The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. David Bradley and Shelley F. Fishkin, eds. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, 1997. 3 vols. Comprehensive collection of nearly 700 alphabetically arranged entries treating all aspects of the civil rights movement in the United States (e.g., personalities, historical events and eras, economics, education, culture, landmark court cases).

Facts on File Encyclopedia of Black Women in America. Darlene C. Hine, ed. New York: Facts on File, 1997. Contains eleven volumes, each devoted to a different area of endeavor (business, education, social activism, etc.). Profiles of more than 1,000 African American women over the past 400 years.

Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement. Ralph E. Luker. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Scarecrow, 1996. Over 300 entries.

Let Freedom Ring: Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Peter B. Levy, ed. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. Collection of ninety-five documents (speeches, sermons, essays, court cases, etc.). Contains the words of influential personalities such as King and Malcolm X and also of less well-known civil rights workers.

GENERAL SOURCES

Goings, Kenneth W., and Raymond A. Mohl, eds. The New African American Urban History. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996. Revealing and informative collection of essays by different scholars treating a variety of topics related to blacks in the urban environment from slavery days to 1964.

Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. Compelling analysis of the civil rights struggle examining the lives of three U.S. senators and four presidents whose careers affected the movement.

Washington, James M., ed. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper&Row, 1986. Useful and comprehensive collection of King’s writings—sermons, speeches, essays, interviews, and excerpts from his books. Good critical interpretation and commentary.
SPECIALIZED SOURCES

Albert, Peter J., and Ronald Hoffman, eds. We Shall Overcome: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Freedom Struggle. (1990). Reprint. New York: Da Capo, 1993. Popular history of King and the struggle for civil rights.

Bullard, Sara. Free at Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Concise and easy-to-read history of the movement for civil rights, with emphasis on the period from 1954 (school desegregation) to 1968 (King’s assassination).

Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Movement: 1964–1970. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Compiled by the staff of the King Papers Project; collection of papers, documents, and other material providing excellent insight into the nature of the civil rights movement.

———, et al., eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990. Rev. ed. New York: Viking, 1991. Produced in conjunction with a PBS television series; comprehensive collection of relevant primary source material. (See the Williams work below.)

Levine, Michael L. African Americans and Civil Rights: From 1619 to the Present. Phoenix: Oryx, 1996. Interesting history of the civil rights struggle and overview of laws and customs. Contains biographical sketches and a glossary. Part of the publisher’s Social Issues in American History series.

Levy, Peter B. The Civil Rights Movement. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. Provides narrative history, biographical sketches, and annotated bibliography. Topical chapters contain primary documents. Part of the publisher’s Guides to Historic Events of the Twentieth Century series.

McKissack, Patricia, and Frederick McKissack. The Civil Rights Movement in America: From 1865 to the Present. 2d ed. Danbury, CT: Children’s Press, 1991. Well-written and readable revised edition of a classic work; contains photographs, and excellent narrative.

Patterson, Charles. The Civil Rights Movement. New York: Facts on File, 1995. Examination of major events beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 to the early 1970s. Similar in scope and coverage to the Bullard work above.

Posner, Gerald. Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Random House, 1998. Latest theory on the assassination; published on the thirtieth anniversary of King’s death.
Riches, William T. M. The Civil Rights Movement: Struggle and Resistance. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Chronological account of all aspects of the civil rights struggle; examines organizations, personalities, and strategies.

Wexler, Sanford. The Civil Rights Movement: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1993. Readable accounts from a variety of people witnessing a variety of events, with emphasis on the 1950s and 1960s. Part of the publisher’s Eyewitness History series.

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement 1954–1965. New York: Viking, 1987. Illustrated well-written textual narrative to accompany the PBS series of the same name. See Carson source book above.

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63. New York: Simon&Schuster, 1988. Excellent, detailed, and thorough account of the life and times of the civil rights leader beginning with the early years of the King family ministry to focus on the critical period between the Montgomery bus boycott and the Kennedy assassination; continued by Pillar of Fire (see next entry).

———. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65. New York: Simon&Schuster, 1998. Recently published second volume in the historical biography that provides an in-depth look at the two years following the Kennedy assassination (see previous entry).

Jakoubek, Robert. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. Concise and easy-to-read but informative biography of King and the civil rights movement; contains a chronology as well as a bibliography.

Lane, Mark, and Dick Gregory. Murder in Memphis: The FBI and the Assassination of Martin Luther King. (1977). Reprint. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1993. One of the first works to raise questions about the accepted version of the killing. Originally published under the title of Code Name Zorro.

Powledge, Fred. We Shall Overcome: Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1993. Begins with a brief history of the movement for civil rights and leads into collective biography of ten relatively unknown individuals who dared to oppose prevailing societal inequities.

Smith, Jessie C., ed. Black Heroes of the 20th Century. Detroit: Visible Ink, 1997. Collective biography of modern black Americans who have had significant impact.

Thompson, Julius E. Percy Greene and the Jackson Advocate: The Life and Times of a Radical Conservative Black Newspaperman, 1897–1977. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994. Interesting brief biography of an outspoken critic of the radical left.

Washington, Linn. Black Judges on Justice: Perspectives from the Bench. New York: New Press/Norton, 1994. Collective biography of fourteen African American judges; survey of their lives, careers, and philosophical positions, with example rulings.

AUDIOVISUAL SOURCES

Friedman, Thomas. ‘‘Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Historical Perspective.’’ Biography. New York: A&E Home Video, 1994. 1-hour television presentation of King’s life; film footage, photographs, and narration.

WORLD WIDE WEB

Grossman, Wendy. ‘‘The Voting Rights Act: 30 years Later.’’ The Chronicle Online. 1997. http://www.chronicle.duke.edu/chronicle/95/11/15/s08TheVoting.html Four-page narrative written for the Duke University Chronicle in 1995 on the impact of the Voting Rights Act and its current interpretation.