Question 1: Source A is photographic evidence, does this mean it is reliable as evidence about the difficulties facing black protesters in the 1960s?

Source shows us protesters outside what looks like a town hall, where voting is usually held. It also shows two black men protesting in what seems a quite peaceful way just as Ghandi was in South Africa in the 1910s, as he believed in Christian Pacifism which was used to put across or protest for change in a non-violent way. During the 1950s-60s Martin Luther King achieved a number of Civil rights movements by using non-violent means of protest in the U.S.A. We can not however fully believe this photograph as it may have been altered or even an organised photograph, which means that it could have been planned and nothing really happened. Although every source is useful to a Historian looking at 1960s America so we can see what it may have been like when blacks tried to vote.

In the top photograph we can also see that the mens banners are being taken away from them by the police force, which suggests that, the police force did not completley agree with the black people campaigning for their civil ri

Source C explains what movements achieved although not in great detail, it explains every movement in sufficent detail to extract bits of relevant information out. The first line of the source is very powerful " The Negro revolt has gone from strength to strength", I do not know whether D. Snowman was white or bllack but for either it was a powerful thing to say as it is saying that even through all the white supremisists attcks the black protests are still going strong. The most relevant part of this source for me is that he tells of every movement that happened over 3 years, including the 1960 sit-ins which in two weeks caused sit ins in over 11 cities in the South, this was the idea of Martin Luther King, James Lawson and Ralph Abernathy. It also tells us at the end that the Washington protest lead to the biggest Civil Rights Bill going through Congress, this was the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 put through the Congress by President Lyndon Johnson, and also the Voting Rights Bill in 1965 which entitled every black to vote safely.

Sources E and F are both similar and are the most detailed of all the sources, they are also the two which help us understand why people felt that they had to protest in a non-violent way and a violent way. Source E explains more to us the success of the protests, which were help between 1960-1968, it describes the degree at which peoplpe wanted to gain their Civil Rights and also that it was successful at times.

Source B tells us what it was like on a freedom ride in the 1960s. The freedom rides were used to try to desegregate the interstate busses. They were normally successful but their success brought joy to the blacks at the cost of the violence and fear which was brought about by white supremecists led by people such as Eugene 'Bull' Connor, Governor John Patterson of Alabamaand Governor George Wallace who ran for President in 1968. A man called James Peck wrote this account, but it doesn't say whether or not he was actually in the freedom rides. These rides went from May 4th 1961 to May 24th of the same year, and James Peck isn't recorded in any account. Also, he is writing a year after the event, not knowing more about his background makes this source hard to credit and believe. From our own knowledge we know that white supremicists civilians and legal systemery physically and verbally abused the "Freedom Riders". Therefore I believe that this source is very valuable to use as although the man may not have been directly involved he must have seen or heard about it, the only thing is that it may be biased. Even if it is biased we can stll learn what people thought about the freedom rides and how much progress they think they achieved.

Question 4: In the 1960s blacks disagreed amongst themselves about the best way to try to gain equal rights, how useful are sources E and F in helping you to understand why this was so?

By using

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Approximate Word count = 1950
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)