Rights and Protest Notes

Apartheid South Africa & Civil Rights Movement

Oxford University Press Information
  • Published by Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford.
  • Located at 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom.
  • First published in 2015.
  • All rights reserved.
  • Printed in Great Britain.
IB Diploma Programme Course Companions
  • Resource materials designed to support students during their two-year Diploma Programme.
  • Aims to help students understand expectations and present content aligning with IB principles.
  • Encourages a deep understanding by connecting to wider issues and critical thinking.
  • Mirrors the IB philosophy, including international mindedness and core requirements.
  • Used with other materials, drawing conclusions from various sources.
  • Offers advice and guidance on assessment and academic honesty.
  • Distinctive and authoritative without being prescriptive.
IB Mission Statement
  • Aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring young people.
  • Promotes a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
  • Works with schools, governments, and international organizations.
  • Develops challenging programs of international education and rigorous assessment.
  • Encourages students to be active, compassionate, and lifelong learners.
The IB Learner Profile

IB learners strive to be:

  • Inquirers: Develop curiosity and skills for inquiry and research; enjoy learning.
  • Knowledgeable: Explore significant ideas and issues; gain in-depth knowledge across disciplines.
  • Thinkers: Apply critical and creative thinking skills to solve complex problems and make ethical decisions.
  • Communicators: Express ideas confidently and creatively in multiple languages and modes.
  • Principled: Act with integrity, fairness, and respect; take responsibility for actions.
  • Open-minded: Appreciate own cultures and others' perspectives; seek and evaluate diverse viewpoints.
  • Caring: Show empathy, compassion, and commitment to service; make a positive difference.
  • Risk-takers: Approach unfamiliar situations with courage; explore new ideas and defend beliefs.
  • Balanced: Understand the importance of intellectual, physical, and emotional balance.
  • Reflective: Give thoughtful consideration to learning and experiences; assess strengths and limitations.
Academic Honesty
  • Acknowledge and credit information sources to respect intellectual property rights.
  • Authentic work must be based on individual and original ideas, properly acknowledging others' work.
  • Assignments must use own language and expression, with sources appropriately acknowledged through footnotes and bibliographies.
Acknowledging Sources
  • Use footnotes (bottom of page) or endnotes (end of document) for quotes, paraphrases, or summaries.
  • Bibliographies should include all resources (books, magazines, websites, CDs, art) with full information for readers to find the same information.
  • A bibliography is compulsory in the extended essay.
Misconduct
  • Misconduct includes plagiarism and collusion, resulting in unfair advantage.
  • Plagiarism is representing others' ideas or work as your own.
  • Collusion is supporting misconduct by another student (e.g., allowing copying or duplicating work).
  • Other misconduct includes unauthorized material in exams or falsifying records.
Historical Concepts
  • Historical Context: The middle years of the twentieth century saw an explosion of protest by non-White people of the United States and South Africa against the racist policies of segregation and discrimination followed by their governments. This struggle for rights, freedom and justice is a dening part of the modern history of the two countries.
  • Case studies:
    • Apartheid South Africa (1948–1964): Election of National Part government (1948) led to harsher racial system known as apartheid. Black majority responded with non-violent, mass-based protests that transformed into armed struggle after Sharpeville massacre (1960). Culmination was the Rivonia Trial (1964) with life imprisonment terms for Nelson Mandela and codefendants.
    • Civil Rights Movement in the United States (1954–1965): Study begins (1954) with the Brown versus Board of Education decision. Examines landmark moments in struggle for rights, including Montgomery bus boycott and Freedom Summer. Climax of study is passage of Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965).
  • Historical concepts:
    • Consequence
    • Perspectives
    • Significance
    • Causation
    • Continuity
    • Change
  • Key questions:
    • What was the impact of the apartheid system on the lives of South Africans?
    • What were the results of the Sharpeville massacre?
    • What were the results of the Rivonia Trial and the jailing of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe?
    • What response from the United States government did Freedom Riders hope to catalyze?
    • How did overt and visual opposition to civil rights actions effect the views of the American public?
    • What were the immediate and lasting effects of the violence by law officers during the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965?
    • Was there any real difference between petty apartheid and grand apartheid?
    • To what extent were the various protests and campaigns against apartheid successful?
    • Was the ANC taken over by the South African Communist Party?
    • Did Chief Luthuli authorize the use of armed struggle?
    • To what extent did the goals of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. differ?
    • In what ways were the views and methods of the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and the NOI different?
    • What events/actions/ individuals/organizations were most significant in shaping the apartheid system and the response of the Black majority to this system?
    • What were the impact of non-violent resistance by civil rights protestors?
    • What were the significant contributions the United States Supreme Court and the Presidency to the rights of African Americas?
    • What was the importance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to civil rights?
    • Nature and characteristics of the apartheid system
    • Limitations to the success of anti-apartheid opposition
    • Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. remains key civil rights leader throughout the period
    • Segregationist opposition to civil rights employs economic, political, and violent means throughout the 1950s and 1960s
    • Why did the National Party government implement apartheid laws?
    • What factors determined the various strategies employed by the anti-apartheid movement?
    • Why did states such as Virginia practice Massive Resistance after Brown v. Board of Education?
    • What were the reasons why SNCC, the SCLC and CORE used the tactic of nonviolent protest?
    • Why did segregationist fight hard to maintain Jim Crow laws and practices?
    • The move from petty apartheid to grand apartheid
    • The move from peaceful protest to armed struggle
    • Sporadic change from segregated schools throughout the southern United States in 1954 to many, but not a majority of schools desegregated by 1965.
    • Segregated public facilities legal through out the southern states; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes such segregation illegal
    • Presidential support for civil rights and civil rights legislation rises
      Historiography
  • Sources often determine what becomes most popular because some areas have more documents.
  • Historians must be aware of the scope and methods for ordering historical sources.
  • Historians may use vast quantities of declassified government and military documents.
  • Despite available documents, there is still no consensus on key causes of events.
  • Each generation of historian can move closer to “historical truth” and can be more objective because they are further away in time from an event and have more sources to work from.
  • The key role of historians is to bring us closer to historical truth.
  • Historians' selection of evidence and use of language tell us more about their own eras and societies than those of the past.
Paper 1: Working with Sources
  • Historians base training and discipline on documentary evidence.
  • Paper 1 skills are applied when researching and drawing conclusions.

In Paper 1, students will:

  • Demonstrate understanding of historical sources.
  • Interpret and analyze information from a variety of sources.
  • Compare and contrast information between sources.
  • Evaluate sources for their value and limitations.
  • Synthesize evidence from the sources with their own detailed knowledge of the topic.
General Tips for approaching source-based questions on Paper 1
First question

  • The rst question is in two parts. It is made up of a 3-mark and a 2-mark component – giving you a possible total of 5 marks. It is assessing your historical comprehension of the sources. You do not need to give your own detailed knowledge in your response.This is the only question that asks you to explain the content and meaning of the documents
    Part a
    The 3-mark question asks you to comprehend, extract and possibly infer information.

  • Write: rstly …, secondly …, thirdly … to ensure that you make at least three separate points.

  • Do not repeat the same point you have already made.

  • Do not overly rely on quotes – make your point and then briey quote two or three words of the source in support.
    Part b

  • You should try to make two clear points for this question.

  • For each point, refer specically to the content of the source to provide evidence for your answer.

  • For parts a and b you should not need to bring in your own knowledge; however your contextual understanding of the topic and sources should enable you to understand more clearly the content and message of each source.

Second question
  • For the second question, you need to evaluate one source in terms of its “value” and “limitations” by examining its origin, purpose and content.This question is worth 4 marks.
    • To nd the origin and purpose look carefully at the provenance of the source:
      • For origin
        • Who wrote it/said it/drew it?
        • When did the person write it/say it/draw it?
        • Where did the person write it/say it/draw it?
        • What is the source – a speech/cartoon/ textbook, etc.?
      • For purpose
        • Why did the person write it/say it/draw it?
        • Who did the person write it/say it/draw itfor?
      • For content
        • Is the language objective or does it sound exaggerated or one-sided?
        • What is the tone of the source?
        • What information and examples do they select or focus on to support their point?
  • From the information you have on the origins of the source, and what you can infer about the document’s purpose, you must then explain the value and limitations the source has for historians researching a particular event or period in history.
  • Note that value and limitations given in the grid are general or generic points that could be applied to these sources. However, your contextual knowledge and the specic provenance of any source that you get in the examination will allow you to make much more precise comments on the value and limitations of the source that you evaluate in a document question.
    *Notice also that the value of the source will always depend on what you are using it for.
Third question
  • This will ask you to compare and contrast two sources. Your aim is to identify similar themes and ideas in two sources, and to also identify differences between them. It is marked out of a total of 6 marks.
  • The key to this question is linkage, i.e. you are expected to discuss the sources together throughout your response. The examiner is looking for a running commentary. At no time should you talk about one source without relating it to the other.
  • You must nd both similarities and differences.This is best presented as two separate paragraphs – one for comparisons and one for contrasts.
Fourth question
  • This is worth the most marks, 9 of the total of 25. It requires you to write a mini-essay.
  • The key to this question is that an essay is required – not a list of material from each source.
  • However, you are required to synthesize material from the sources with your own knowledge in your essay.
    Pacing
  • First question, parts a and b 10 minutes 5 marks
  • Second question 10 minutes 4 marks
  • Third question 15 minutes 6 marks
  • Fourth question 25 minutes 9 marks
  • In addition, as you are using sources as well as your own knowledge, you could use the following to help tie in the sources to your own knowledge:
    As it says in Source C …This is supported by the information given in Source …
    Source A suggests that … and this is supported by the fact that in the Soviet Union at this time …
    Historians have argued that …This viewpoint is supported by the information in Source E concerning …
Case Study 1: Apartheid South Africa (1948–1964)
  • NP won 1948 election, implementing apartheid.
  • Implemented legislative to reinforce minority White population's dominance.
  • Sought complete separation of racial groups.
  • Resulted in opposition to apartheid and international pressure.
  • Began dismantling apartheid in the 1980s due to crisis.
  • Transition to non-racialism completed with democratic elections in 1994.
  • ANC won elections; Nelson Mandela became first Black president, after serving 27 years in prison.
  • Assumption: Ethnic groups are essentially different, with a natural hierarchy.
  • Apartheid theorists believed White race superior, Black race inferior; Coloureds and Indians in between.
  • Government should acknowledge these inequalities by promoting White interests, keeping races separate.
  • In many respects, it was similar to the various social Darwinist philosophies of the 20th century.
  • Justified through Calvinist scripture and reasoning (God created and destined Afrikaners to rule).

Debate About Origin:

  • André du Toit argues that the assumption that 19th-century Boers had a sense of special destiny is a ction generated by Afrikaner nationalists in the 1930s.
  • Celebrations of the Great Trek and Battle of Blood River were used to project modern Afrikaner nationalist values onto historical Voortrekkers.
  • Poorly educated frontier farmers with little interest in theology were simply escaping the unwelcome interference of a foreign power and had little sense the journey that they were undertaking held any religious signicance.
    Alternative Views:
  • Racism can be found in early British rule in the Cape, with attitudes reflected in the 1853 constitution distinguishing between