Letter from Birmingham jail

The Civil Rights Movement

I have provided the Letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King in Announcements. Please read before answering the following questions:

1.The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances.

Please consider the United States Constitution’s First Amendment, and determine whether or not Martin Luther King would have had the right to march in Birmingham, Alabama. Why or why not?

Then, consider a current event in which people are protesting against the government, and determine whether or not their actions are protected under the First Amendment.

2.Brown v. Board of Education Please research (there is an appendix at the end of your textbook), and explain the importance of this case.

Then, explain how this case impacted subsequent actions by the Civil Rights movement throughout the United States.

Letter from Birmingham Jail: Please provide an overview of Dr. King’s letter (a short paragraph), and then compare it to Patrick Henry’s speech Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.

Please explain how Henry David Thoreau’s The Duty on Civil Disobedience, regarding his commentary on law vs. morality, could be applied to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.