Q: ‘By 1957 the Civil Rights Movement had made real progress in integrating schools’. How far do the sources support this statement? Use details from Source A-D and your own knowledge to support your answer.
A: Source A agrees with the statement, while Sources B to D doesn’t.
Source A supports the statement because it tells us that the majority of white students didn’t harass the black students who attended Little Rock High, but instead it was a minority of white students who made school difficult for those black students. This tells us that racist attitudes which were expressed were only prevalent in a small group of the white students in the school which means progress had been made in integrating schools. The evidence to support this is Source A says “Most of the white students didn’t bother us”.
Source A was said by Elizabeth Eckford, a black student who attended Little Rock High at the time. This strengthens the support of the statement by Source A as although the source is the account of a person and therefore is subject to bias Elizabeth wouldn’t have a reason to change the account as it would actually have benefited her to exaggerate her experiences as she said this in 1962, only 5 years after what happened when not much had changed. Therefore, the source is reliable. …show more content…
This tells us that the school board was racist and allowed the harassment to take place to give them an opportunity to expel or suspend the black students which means that much progress hadn’t taken place in integrating schools as the school board was racist. The evidence to support this is Source B says “The school board used the incident to suspend Minnie (but not the ones who harassed her), and then finally to expel