486 ChaPTer 21 | DisContinuities | period eight 1945 –198 0
P erioD eight
194 5–1980Working WiTh SeConDary SourCeS
AP® Short Answer QuestionsCivil rights Leadership
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. launched a new phase in the reform era. He almost singlehand-
edly changed the landscape of race relations in the United States. Such a powerful figure
ran the risk of outdistancing the needs of other marginalized groups in the United States
during this time, including women, Native Americans, and Latinos. Does reform depend
on extraordinary talent and appeal (as with King), and if so, do such movements expect
King’s counterpart to emerge as a spokesperson for their group?
King’s influence also asks historians to reflect on the ways in which reform is spread
equally among all groups or is spread narrowly so that only individual groups take signifi-
cant steps in social and economic contexts.
You already have read various sources that illustrate different perspectives on civil
rights during this era. Now read the two passages below, and consider the extent to
which the civil rights era fulfilled the promise of the Declaration of Independence.Appreciating King’s own understanding of his role and responsibilities is really
more crucial than anything else, I would contend, to comprehending the kind of
leadership that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave to the American black freedom strug-
gle of the 1950s and 1960s. By 1963–1964, as that role and those responsibilities
grew, King thought increasingly about his own destiny and what he termed “this
challenge to be loyal to something that transcends our immediate lives.”...
King’s understanding of his life underwent a significant deepening when he
was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. The prize signaled the beginning of
a fundamental growth in King’s own sense of mission and in his willingness to
accept a prophetic role....
More and more in those years King thought of his own life in terms of the cross....
More than anything else, the Vietnam War issue brought King face to face
with what was becoming a consciously self-sacrificial understanding of his role
and fate.... [I]n early 1967, King resolved to take on Lyndon B. Johnson’s war
publicly as never before.
— David J. Garrow, “Martin Luther King, Jr., and the spirit of Leadership,” Journal of
American History 74 (september 1987): 444 – 445.The one glaring flaw that should have concerned all women activists, whatever
their ideological persuasion, was feminism’s failure to escape its narrow class and
race boundaries. Despite the ambitious aspirations of socialist feminists for a
cross-class, cross-race coalition, most feminist activists were white, middle class,
and college-educated. There were occasional black feminist groups, such as the
National Black Feminist Organization, and each feminist organization boasted
some participation by African-American or Latina women. Yet on balance, the
numbers were infinitesimally small. Both the language and the programs of fem-
inist groups seemed to reflect a white middle-class approach. Until women ofWorking with secondary sources 48722_STA_2012_ch21_473-488.indd 487 16/04/15 6:48 PM