Use your own knowledge to explain why the different views in Source G were expressed.

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Alistair Divorty

Q.4. Use your own knowledge to explain why the different views in Source G were expressed

The three different people speaking out against Elvis Presley in Source G all have the same negative view of Elvis and the impact he was having, but have these views for different reasons and also have different reasons for expressing them publicly.

        Emmanuel Celler, who was an American Republican politician, is disapproving of Elvis Presley and is basically saying that Elvis is in bad taste and his uncivilised, immoral behaviour is only suitable for coloured people – though he is not directly racist, he implies strongly that black people are primitive compared to white people. He is expressing a conservative, adult, white view, because he would have been appealing to mature white people, in an effort to gain more votes from this group and ultimately get elected.

        The racist view given by Emmanuel Cellers in Source G would have supported by his white public because the 1950s was a time of racial segregation in America (mainly in the southern states, where the slave trade had been based). This meant that the 10% of Americans who were black (African-Americans) were generally prevented from sharing in America’s prosperity, were excluded from the democratic process, endured racial discrimination and severe economic inequality, in spite of the abolition of slavery. Segregation was imposed on the blacks to keep them apart from and worse-off than whites due solely to racial prejudice.

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        One example demonstrating how real segregation actually was in society is an event known as the ‘bus boycott’. On December 1 in Alabama, Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white male (as was required by law). She was arrested and fined, but her friends and family staged a 24-hour bus boycott, which was so successful that more of the black community joined in and the boycott extended until the bus company (whose business was highly damaged as blacks made up 75% of bus-users) agreed to treat all passengers on a ...

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