Question

In your opinion, who has been the most important civil rights leader in history? Use your background knowledge and

Conduct additional research to defend your choice. Use two pieces of evidence and logical reasoning to support your claim
and be sure to address one counterargument

Answer 1

Ralph Bunche: The First African American Nobel Peace Prize Winner

In 1950, Dr. Ralph Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful mediation of a ceasefire between four Arab nations and the State of Israel— the first time that all parties in the conflict ever signed armistice agreements with Israel. Consequently, his success made him a symbol of racial progress in a segregated America.

Born in 1903, Bunche would come to live his whole life practicing his personal creed of mediation over open conflict. This was the defining feature of his worldview and his actions as he delegated in the UN and as he marched as a Civil Rights Activist.

During his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo, Norway, Bunche said: ‘The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change—even radical change—possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interests in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better, world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society, which is the objective of the United Nations, all people must have equality and equal rights.’

Answer 2

Answer: Martin Luther King Jr

Step-by-step explanation:

The 1865 ratification of the 13th Amendment legally ended slavery in the United States, but, for the victims of the Atlantic slave trade, it also marked the beginning of a new era of oppression. Violence and racism — both blatant and institutional — ran rampant, especially in the South, where the discriminatory Jim Crow Laws laid the groundwork for racial segregation following the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era.

By the 1950s, after enduring nearly a century of inequality, segregation, as well as vicious lynchings and other senseless acts of violence, a group of African American activists began the civil rights movement. Over the course of the next two decades, countless Black men and women mobilized, organizing boycotts, sit-ins, and nonviolent protests such as the 1961 Freedom Rides and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in an effort to fight back against systematic oppression.

Thanks to their tireless efforts — often in the face of jail time, beatings, and, in some cases, death — Congress eventually passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending segregation in public places and banning employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. One year later, U.S. lawmakers also passed another landmark piece of civil rights legislation: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.