Four Corners: Defending civil rights: an activist's perspective, 1968

SUBJECTS:  Civics and Citizenship, History

YEARS:  9–10

What happens when the members of a society feel like they have no hope?

This is the situation faced by members of Harlem's African American community in 1968, who find themselves in a cycle of poverty.

Civil rights activists like Al Cook offer a solution to the problem: fight back.

Things to think about

1. 1.Have you heard the expression 'strength in numbers'? Think of any group of people that you would consider powerful. How does it select its members? How does it enforce its power? Under what circumstances do you think the citizens of a country have the right to fight their government, and what sort of means do you think they should use to fight?
2. 2.The reporter notes that a feature of the Grand United Order of Elks was that its members excluded three major groups of people. List these three groups. How might excluding these groups have strengthened the organisation? The reporter uses some slang terms in this report. List and then define them. Why do you think he has chosen to use these slang terms?
3. 3.Based upon what this clip shows, in what ways did poverty contribute to the unrest in Harlem in the 1960s? Do you think that there would have been so much unrest if people were not poor? Find out about the phrase 'Black is beautiful'. What impact did it have on the USA's cultural and political landscape in the 1960s?
4. 4.Civil rights activist Al Cook cites the Declaration of Independence as justification for defending himself against 'enemies, foreign or domestic'? Do you think that he and other African Americans of this era had a right to 'take up arms' against their government? Does the Australian constitution provide similar justification for self defence?

Date of broadcast: 19 Oct 1968

Copyright

^{Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).}