Document 7: Dawson Letter

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Citation: From Accession No. NN-374-146, folder RDO, general file #1, Records of the Interstate Commerce Commission, RG 134.

Vocabulary: intrastate, interstate, Interstate Commerce Commission, Pilate, 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Questions for Students

1. Explain the difference between interstate and intrastate.

2. Why do you think the waiting room signs distinguish between white and colored waiting rooms for intrastate passengers?

3. What action does Dawson want taken? By whom?

4. List the reasons Dawson gives for her demands. What do you think of her reasons?

5. Why do you think Dawson refers to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision?

Discussion Questions

1. Why did civil rights groups focus on inequities in bus and train station facilities?

2. Consider the date of this letter and the reasons why, seven years after the Brown case, segregated facilities remained.

3. "Americans seem to want laws expressing high ideals but they seem also to want the convenience of ignoring or violating many of them with impunity." Monroe Berger, Equality by Statute (New York, 1968), p. 1. Discuss.

Contents:

Related Resources

Civil Rights Movement

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Chicago: "Document 7: Dawson Letter," Teaching With Documents, Volume 1 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989), 55–56. Original Sources, accessed April 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=F5XMLR8KSCM25XM.

MLA: . "Document 7: Dawson Letter." Teaching With Documents, Volume 1, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Vol. 1, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989, pp. 55–56. Original Sources. 29 Apr. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=F5XMLR8KSCM25XM.

Harvard: , 'Document 7: Dawson Letter' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 1. cited in 1989, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board, Washington, D.C., pp.55–56. Original Sources, retrieved 29 April 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=F5XMLR8KSCM25XM.