The Influence Of The Civil Rights Act

Submitted By selinakkk
Words: 697
Pages: 3
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Post revisionist W. Johnson’s statement, suggesting the Civil Rights act one of the most important pieces of legislation represents as biased, as Jonson’s statement appears to be almost a personal opinion which lacks efficient support to his argument. Various historians such as Johnson developed personal hypotheses therefore carefully selecting specific sources was more difficult, which led me to follow various historic journals such as the Journal of American Studies by professor of History and traditionalist Harvard Sitkoff. This was particularly useful to me as Sitkoff highlighted many of his personal opinions allowing me to associate this against the significance of the Civil Rights movement and make comparisons across the late 1960’s. Sitkollf critically analyses the importance of the act and the meaning behind it, his in depth studies range a series of primary sources reinforcing his consistency. Harvard Sitkoff being a professor of History at the University of New Hampshire, I felt reinforced his reliability as an individual foundation, his judgements were a great addition to my analysis however at times, did appear too subjective.
My key source was the sweet Land of Liberty by Robert Crook 1997, which covered a large scope of various events helping me greatly to put the Civil Rights movement into context surrounded by its neighbouring acts which led to its very existence. I found Crook’s source more accurate than W.Jhonon’s opinionated account, as Johnson’s inquiry was less precise in factual context. Whereas Crook, being a well-known revisionist politician and acting as a primary source offers a detailed account and his personal analysis which refer to a great range of historians, adding depth to his study, in which Johnson’s lacks. I particularly found Crook’s opinionated account focusing around the 1960’s on the social factors and acceptance of Southern African Americans interesting. He appears relatively critical of America and argues against its superficial promises, presenting an argument highlighting America’s hollow declarations for hope of only momentary peace, full of purely self interest. This was however was very constructive to me as it enabled me to differentiate between genuine and fabricated political motives and hence put their actual significance into perspective, which was a key element of my analysis.
Another renowned historian, for his expertise in the field of American history, which I found predominantly reliable, was Adam Fairclough. His book ‘Better day coming’ published in 2001 yet Faircloughs studies began in early 1860’s developing a more accurate overview in explaining a detailed account of events that took place and offered some useful factual information.This led me to further investigate counter interpretations which put the importance of the Civil Rights Bill into context unalike Sally Bedell whom I found to be fairly subjective. I read Badell’s book “Grace and power: The
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