Edexcel History – unit 3C

Edexcel History – Unit 3C

The 4 Topics

 Topic 1 – the red scare and McCarthyism

 Topic 2 – the civil rights movement until 1962
 Topic 3 – the civil rights movement 1963-70
 Topic 4 – other protest movements (e.g. students, women)

Exam Requirements

 It’s a source paper

 Only one small part of the syllabus will come up
 EXAM TECHNIQUE IS CRUCIAL…
 There are 5 questions
o Q1 (6 Marks)
 ‘What can you learn from source A about…?’
 You need two supported inferences (two points supported with a
quote)
o Q2 (8 Marks)
 ‘What was the purpose of source B?’
 You need to write about the message and purpose of the source)
o Q3 (10 Marks)
 ‘How far do sources B and C support the view of source A about…?’
 Just a straightforward comparison
 REMEMBER! YOU DO NOT NEED TO COMPARE B WITCH!
o Q4 (10 Marks)
 ‘How useful/reliable are sources D and E in telling us about…?’
 You need to discuss content and NOP (Nature, Origin and Purpose)
 It May help to think of it as a grid like this…

Conten
NOP
t
Sourc
eD
Sourc
eE

If you can tick all the boxes you’ll get a really good mark on this
question
o Q5 (16 Marks)
 This will be a statement and you will be asked to decide if each of the
sources support the view using the sources and ‘own knowledge’
 Edexcel History – unit 3C

Background knowledge for Unit 3- Presidents

 Roosevelt (democrat)
o 1944-45
o Died in office
 Truman (Democrat)
o 1945-52
o Was Roosevelt’s V.P.
o ‘Red scare’ era
 Eisenhower (republican)
o 1952-60
o Civil rights protests
 JFK (Democrat)
o 1960-63
o Relatively young for a president with a young family
o ‘The new frontier’
o Assassinated in 1963
 LBJ (Democrat)
o 1963-68
o JFK’s V.P
 Nixon (Republican)
o 1968-72
o Vietnam

Topic 1-the red scare and McCarthyism

What was the red scare?

 The fear of communism in America

 People were afraid communists were working secretly in the country
 The paranoia quickly spread
 One reason for this was the continuing cold war and the fear of Russia

The key features of the red scare

 HUAC (house of un-American Affairs committee)

o Questioned suspected communists
o Set up by government
o Government involvement increased fear
 Elizabeth Bentley
o Admitted to being a soviet spy
o She named names
 Edexcel History – unit 3C

o Showed people there were communists in the country

 Hollywood
o HUAC feared films would be used as communist propaganda
o Actors were asked to name names
o People would accuse others to avoid being accused themselves
 Loyalty Boards
o Set up to investigate government workers
o 200 people forced to resign
 Alger Hiss
o Man accused of being a communist
o Sent to trial
o Convicted of lying to the court
o Fear of Russia increased due to the atomic bomb
o He was in government
 McCarthy’s List
o McCarthy produced a list of ‘Known communists’
o People were afraid of being on the list
 Support for McCarthy
o A lot of support at the beginning
o Anti-communists groups gained more power
o People were afraid of being accused
 The Rosenbergs
o Arrested for being spies
o They were executed
o A lot of publicity and protests to prevent their execution but ultimately they
were executed anyway

Topic 2 – The civil rights movement until 1962

This is when the civil rights movement began. The emphasis was strongly on peaceful
protests.

Types of protest

 Sit-Ins
o People would intentionally sit in the ‘wrong’ place to challenge segregation
o Sit-ins became a very popular form of protest in the south
o THEY DID NOT RESPOND TO PROVOCATION
 Freedom rides
o 1961 segregated bus stations were ruled unconstitutional
 Edexcel History – unit 3C

o ‘Freedom rides’ were organised in the south to see if the law was being
followed
o Freedom riders were BLACK AND WHITE
o Freedom riders were imprisoned in Birmingham and beaten up in
Montgomery
o 400 freedom riders were arrested
o 3 of them were killed

Opposition to civil rights

 KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

o Members names were hidden but people knew who was in the Klan
o Members included Judges, soldiers and police
o They believed in a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon protestant) country
o They hated the black, Jews, Catholics, communists and other minority groups
 The white citizens council
o Protested against integration
o Continued to ignore segregation laws
 Opposition to James Meredith
o Became the first black person to go to university in Mississippi
o Huge riots at the university
o 15000 troops were needed to keep the peace

Topic 3- the civil rights movement 1963-70

Landmark Laws

 Represented real steps forward for civil rights

 Seen as a result of the protests
 July 1964- civil rights act passed
o LBJ continued what JFK had started
o Pushed the law through helped by the ‘freedom summer’
o The act banned discrimination
o Said the voter registration tests should always be equal
o A further act was needed to enforce the laws
 1965- Voting rights act was passed
o Set a national literacy test
o Came after a march from Selma to Montgomery which had been brutally
broken up

Key features
 Edexcel History – unit 3C

 Forceful protests became more common led by people such as Malcolm X

 Organisations like ‘Nation of Islam’, ‘Black power’ and ‘black panthers’ were set up
alongside the work of Martin Luther King
 Protest in Birmingham, Alabama was violently broken up by Bull Connor
 Freedom rides, Sit-ins and other peaceful protests continued

Topic – other protest movements

The student movement

 The SDS ( students for a democratic society) was set up in the 1960s
 Students were influenced by…
o Hippies and the idea of ‘making love, not war’ and ‘free love’
o Drugs
o Music such as things by Bob Dylan
o Non-conformity
o The civil rights movement
 They were against the war in Vietnam and would burn draft cards and military
buildings in protest
 The ‘weathermen’ were radical protestors. They would target unoccupied military
buildings to disrupt the draft process.
 Most of the students were from middle class, white families so they were noticed by
politicians
 There were some very radical protests in which 4 of the protestors were shot and
killed

The womens movement

 THIS IS NOT ABOUT WOMEN GETTING THE VOTE! That happened 40 years before in
1920
 Up until the 1960s women were expected to be house wives and mothers
 The pill meant women had control of when they started a family
 The ‘Feminine Mystique’ by Betty Freidan assured women they could do something
with their lives
 The equal pay act and the civil rights act prevented discrimination against women in
the work place but there were loopholes
 Betty Freidan set up an organisation called NOW (national organisation of women)
 Some women felt it was disrespecting what they had done with their lives- they
believed in the traditional housewife position

And last but not least….

 Edexcel History – unit 3C

Good luck with your exam!