Civil Rights: Progress in education
1. Source A is a private comment made by President Eisenhower in May 1954. Eisenhower was not a racist and believed that blacks would not become equal by force, as you cannot force people to not be racist, it comes gradually. It shows that he believed it would set back blacks getting equal rights if the supreme court did decide to mix the school, because although it would be the law, the white people will not be as willing to accept this; therefore could potentially ruin their chances of equal rights in the future. From source A I can also infer that Eisenhower believed by mixing the schools, would make America fall apart and integration would destroy society; ‘if you remember that you may also be talking about social disintegration’.
2. The purpose of the statement in source B was to stop integration. The statement was made by southern MP’s who wanted to stop integration saying it caused violence and the Supreme Court went too far. It could be argued that it was to intimidate the black people by saying how much disruption and violence they have caused and the sheer power of the MP’s themselves would be intimidating. They claimed things were fine before as they didn’t want the north to interfere with the south. However, it is more likely that the MP’s made this statement as they were white themselves (as blacks did not vote) and many white people were against this integration, therefore the MP’s wanted the whites to vote for them, so said what was needed to please them. Also the statement was made as they wanted to make sure that the government didn’t interfere and cause integration, as the MP’s seemed powerful as there were over 100 of them, so that is already 100 in opposition of the integration.
3. Both sources, B and C agree and disagree with source A. Firstly, source B agrees with A as they both imply the Supreme Court went too far, that the decision to integrate should not have been made. Source A says ‘I am convinced that the Supreme Court decision has set back progress in the South..’ and source B says ‘this unjustified exercise of power by the Supreme Court in the Brown VsTopeka case goes against the Constitution…’ They both also agree that this decision led to violence and the decision was wrong. However they do not agree, as source A does not say integration is wrong, only that it happened too fast in the wrong way. Source A believes the integration should not happen by force and it will be gradual but source B believes it is completely wrong and does not want it to happen at all ever. Although more obviously you would think that source C completely disagrees with source A, however this is not completely the case. Source C believes that the Brown vs Topeka case was a great success and the right judgement was made and it would end desegregation so it was quick, whereas source A said that if desegregation is going to happen, it will take time and that it will be slow. Source A believes the Brown Vs Topeka case was a setback in the progress of blacks getting rights, therefore disagreeing with source C. Although source C does agree with A in some ways. Both sources says that integration is important and right therefore should happen, but as previously said they disagree about the way they went about this. It is also important to note how the sources differ from where they were spoken. Source A was a private speech, therefore it was Eisenhower’s true thoughts about what he thought about the matter, and therefore it would have been honest and was probably frightened to say that he believed the Supreme Court made the wrong decision. Source B was a statement publically made by over 100 MP’s, therefore it was most probably to persuade the white people into voting for them and agreeing with