A level History

Pursuing Life and Liberty

Section 1: The social and economic position of black citizens in the USA, 1945–55 4

• The position of black Americans in 1945
• President Truman and civil rights
• Early campaigns
• The NAACP’s education campaigns
• Slow progress

Section 2: Martin Luther King and peaceful protest, 1955–68

• The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Little Rock campaign
• The Greensboro sit-ins and the Freedom Rides
• From Albany to Birmingham
• The March on Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Voting rights, 1957–65
• King’s Northern campaigns
• Opposition to civil rights
• Key players: King, Kennedy and Johnson
• The achievements of peaceful protest, 1955–68

Section 3: Black Power and the use of violence

• Malcolm X
• The radicalisation of SNCC and CORE
• The Black Panthers
• SNCC, 1966–68
• The achievements of Black Power

Section 4: The changing economic and social environment of the 1960s

• Mass culture
• Counterculture and the anti-war movement
• Feminism
• Hispanic Americans
• Native Americans