OCR African American Civil Rights 1865 - 1992 (02 June)

For a civil rights leader type essay across the period, what would the main criticisms of Du Bois be?

Oh American Civil Rights people!!
How are you finding it??
Any thoughts on what the questions might be, considering the examiners are making the questions more wordy/ambiguous?

Good luck with revision. I read through a thread from a couple of years ago for the civil rights about how everyone was revising african americans and it didn't come up and some people were completely scuppered so I daren't hedge my bets.

I think it's a really weird exam - the structure seems to be more important in some ways than the knowledge, and you don't always have time to mention specifics so the continual evaluation is how marks are gained.

How did you find the coursework section, dare I ask?!

Alright actually. It's been sent off at 75/80, which takes the pressure off somewhat in the exam (subject to moderation).

I noticed that year too, but by revising 3/4 there's always going to be two questions you can answer... And I feel equally confident on all three of them.

How about you?


Posted from TSR Mobile

I'm also sitting this exam next monday!! I was wondering if anyone could give me any hints/tips/big points for 'internal divisions' (trade unions). I've seen it come up a few times in past papers so I'm a bit worried as I'm not sure how to structure it? Thanks!

For the African American part can anyone explain to me the part about Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition - we almost seemed to skip it in the lesson and I don't quite get the book.



Well done! 75/80 is great! Particularly considering many teachers dislike the coursework section so much.
Not entirely sure what I got but I somehow managed to get up to the 75 mark too. What was your topic? Our's was Russia

I did King Alfred and the Danes (so so so soooo boring haha). What grade are you hoping for?

Thought I was the only one sitting this exam ! Have you got any pointers on how to revise for it ?

Need to get an A. Would be amazing if I could get an A* but I can't see that happening - you?



I've put things into themes and have started trying to learn them to start with ie categorise all/key points of one topic such as African Americans into Fed Govt and within that the presidents, congress and supreme court. Also, whilst categorising consider the postives and negatives. That way if for example an essay question came up asking to what extent do you agree that the fed govt hindered civil rights dvpt for african americans you can place it into presidents, congress and supreme court paragraphs and divide each paragraph between positive and negative aspects as long as this is not done chronologically. I hope this makes sense

Need to get an A. Would be amazing if I could get an A* but I can't see that happening - you?

have you done the same with for instance Native Americans and its pressure organizations

I need an A, but I think I need a B in the exam to get an A (subject to moderation). What's your offer for?


What specific areas do people think will come up?I don't think African American campaigns/activists will come up because they've done it a lot in the past years, so I think people will be prepared for it. Can see the Native American question being along those lines though!

Yep, Federal govt is a theme which I've done for all of them and also Organisations/individuals and then the others vary e.g. I think the international situation was important for African Americans and for the Trade Unions one I've got strikes. I wouldn't say I've got the best categories though :/



I don't actually know about the exam itself actually ... but overall I need an A. What did you get last year?
Hoping to do Human Geography, although I'll miss learning more for my other A level subjects. You?

No clue. I thought maybe they could be mean and pick something like the Native Americans never really wanted civil rights how far do you agree D: hope nothing like that happens. But, the women one last year was very narrow in scope so I think there will be at least one which is narrow in scope this year.

Medicine at Imperial. I can't wait to never have to do History again!

Oh dear, that question would be absolutely horrible. I'm gonna plan an essay for that tomorrow haha! If that came up I'd be screwed


Posted from TSR Mobile

All of my revision is in themes, so this might not be helpful... but I have:

Immigration: In the early period, an influx of Eastern European immigrants with Bolshevik ideologies under-cut the current workforce, which added to the tensions present in the US society due to the recession in 1893-98. Also, you have the 1886 Haymarket bombing which was a results of those ideologies and resulting in the crippling of the Knights of Labor; in this fashion, the division of the workforce were having a very detrimental effect as the KoL were the only Union standing up the the closed-shop system at the time. Further, you have the Lochner vs New York Case that showed the US citizens clearly felt disenfranchised by immigration. This is comparable to the East Asian immigration in Reagan's presidency; again, it was a time of economic difficult and Union suppression (PATCO), and the fact that the East Asians couldn't effectively under-cut the workforce as significantly due to there being a minimum wage + maximum working ours time due to the Fair Labor Standard Act in 1938 meant that divisions in the early period were much more significant. Also mention the class-polzarization of the vote post-WWII, which was responsible for some of the liberal support workers received.

Class: Workers were separated by class. In the early period, skilled workers were unionised but unskilled workers had much lower levels of unionisation. Compare that to the end of the period and the reverse is true: the 20 million increase in white collar workers from 20.5 million to 40.5 million 1960-1980 meant that skilled workers became somewhat complacent (which in itself is comparable to the welfare capitalism that Pullman and Ford favoured slightly earlier), which meant that Unions had significantly less power and meant that the support of the Democrats was withdrawn as Union support wasn't pivotal to their re-election campaign. In that sense, there has been a clear shift in the period.

Hope that this helps and sorry if it's a bit jambled haha!