UNCOVERING THE PAST ANALYZING PRIMARY SOURCES CIVIL RIGHTS HILARIE STATON Crabtree Publishing Company www crabtreebooks com
INTRODUCTION REMEMBERING THE PAST We are not makers of history We are made by history Dr Martin Luther King Jr Do you remember something that happened to you last year Do family pictures help you remember some special time years ago Maybe it was a family trip or a birthday party The other people who were there may have a different idea of what happened that day These memories are part of who you are It is your history Our country’s history is made from memories too Historians search for these memories They ask questions about life and events They keep looking for information to understand what happened Sometimes it is easy to find this information because they have many sources It is much harder to find out exactly what happened centuries ago because there are fewer sources Historians use many sources to build a picture of the past This book is about uncovering memories of the civil rights movement in the United States It took place during the 1950s and 1960s Because it wasn’t very long ago there are many sources DEFINITIONS Historians use special words to talk about time Decade A period of 10 years Century A period of 100 years Era A period during which something an event or a person is very important It describes a time period not a set number of years This book is about the civil rights era Generation Refers to a group of people who were born around the same time parents are considered to be a separate generation from their children 4 UNCOVERING THE PAST ANALYZING PRIMARY SOURCES
EVIDENCE RECORD CARD The March on Washington D C for Jobs and Freedom LEVEL Primary source MATERIAL Photograph Photographer Warren Leffler LOCATION Washington D C DATE August 28 1963 SOURCE The Granger Collection The March on Washington D C was held on August 28 1963 About 250,000 people marched into the city to ask the United States Congress to pass a civil rights bill CIVIL RIGHTS 5
