This informal assessment draws on students’ knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement but in a way that taps more than just the recall of facts and dates. Close examination can actively use historical information to place the two documents in context and enhance the understanding of how the Civil Rights Movement unfolded.

Document A:Eleanor Roosevelt Letter – Library of Congress

Document B: Daisy Bates Letter – Library of Congress

TASK: The following two letters are from the archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and were written over 20 years apart. Read the letters and determine the order in which the documents were most likely written. Then explain your answers using evidence from the letters and your knowledge of history.

Letter A: From First Lady of the United States to Walter White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP. Before I received your letter today I had been in to the President . . . and he said the difficulty is that it is unconstitutional apparently for the Federal Government to step in in the lynching situation . . . The President feels that lynching is a question of education in the states, rallying good citizens, and creating public opinion so that the localities themselves will wipe it out. However, if it were done by a Northerner, it will have an antagonistic effect . . . I am deeply troubled about the whole situation as it seems to be a terrible thing to stand by and let it continue.

Letter B: Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, on conditions of black children in a previously all-white school. Conditions are yet pretty rough in the school for the children . . . The treatment of the children had been getting steadily worse for the last two weeks in the form of kicking, spitting, and general abuse. As a result of our visit, stronger measures are being taken against the white students who are guilty of committing these offenses . . . [The President of the United States] was very much concerned about the crisis . . . Last Friday, the 13th, I was asked to call Washington and see if we could get FBI men placed in the school.

PROMPTS: 

Letter _____ was likely written first because_______

Letter _____ was likely written later because_______

Print Friendly, PDF & Email