HIS CH 21-2 MONTGOMERY BUS

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Multiple Choice
Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott The face-to-face confrontation at Central High School was not the only showdown over segregation in the mid-1950s. Impatient with the slow pace of change in the courts, African-American activists had begun taking direct action to win the rights promised to them by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution .The Fourteenth Amendment promised “equal protection of the law” (everyone in America should be treated equally. The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to African American men by stating that race should not be used to deny the right to vote. Among those on the frontline of change was Rosa Parks.
Long before December 1955, Rosa Parks had protested segregation through everyday acts . She refused to use drinking fountains labeled “Colored Only .” When possible, she shunned segregated elevators and climbed stairs instead . Parks joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943 and became the organization’s secretary. A turning point came for her in the summer of 1955, when she attended a workshop at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee . Highlander’s program was designed to promote integration by giving the students the experience of interracial living . Returning to Montgomery, Parks was even more determined to fight segregation . As it happened, her act of protest against injustice on the buses inspired a whole community to join her cause

What does the 14th Amendment guarantee to every American?

a.	The right to vote	c.	That the laws will be applied equally to everyone
b.	The right to a happy life	d.	That everyone will get an equal education

The 15th Amendment guarantees that _____

a.	everyone living in the U.S. has the right to vote	c.	African American men and women shall have the right to vote.
b.	the right to vote will not be denied because of a persons race	d.	the laws will be applied equally to black and white people

Rosa Parks protested the Jim Crow laws by .....

a.	refusing to use “colored only” facilities.	c.	by picketing the Montgomery bus company
b.	by picketing the Alabama state house	d.	by refusing to attend black churches

From the reading it is clear that Rosa Parks was interested in promoting

a.	“Black Power”	c.	African American businesses, such as a Montgomery bus company
b.	segregated facilities in Alabama	d.	integration of the races.

BOYCOTTING SEGREGATION Among those on the frontline of change was Jo Ann Robinson. Four days after the Brown decision in May 1954, Robinson wrote a letter to the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, asking that bus drivers no longer be allowed to force riders in the “colored” section to yield their seats to whites. “More and more of our people are already arranging with neighbors and friends for rides to keep from being insulted and humiliated by bus drivers,” Robinson warned . The mayor refused. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an NAACP officer, took a seat in the front row of the “colored” section of a Montgomery bus. As
the bus filled up, the driver ordered Parks and three other African-American passengers to empty the row they were occupying so that a white man could sit down without having to sit next to any African Americans. “It certainly was time for someone to stand up,” recalled Parks wryly. “So I refused to move.” As Parks stared out the window, the bus driver said, “If you don’t stand up, I’m going to call the police and have you arrested .” The soft spoken Parks replied, “You may do that.” News of Parks’s arrest spread rapidly. Jo Ann Robinson and NAACP leader E . D. Nixon quickly organized a boycott of the buses . The leaders of the African-American community, including many ministers, formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to organize the boycott. They elected the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 26-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the group. “Well, I’m not sure I’m the best person for the position,” King confided to Nixon. “But if no one else is going to serve, I’d be glad to try.

Jo Ann Robinson warned the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama that black people were tired of being humiliated on the bus system and were planning to take action. What was the mayor’s response?

a.	He suggested that they sit down and talk	c.	He called out the National Guard
b.	He told her that the Montgomery bus system would never be integrated.	d.	He ignored her.

What did Rosa Parks do?

a.	She brought the issue of bus segregation to the forefront	d.	She did all of these things
b.	She challenged Jim Crow laws	e.	She did all of these things except challenge Jim Crow laws
c.	She focused attention on the inequities of segregation in the South.

What did the African American community do in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks

a.	Called a general strike against all Montgomery businesses	c.	Rioted and burned many Montgomery busses
b.	Organized a boycott the bus system	d.	Lay in the streets and refused to allow any busses to pass.

_____ was elected leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was organized to lead a _____

a.	Martin Luther King - riots against white owned businesses, including the but system	c.	Martin Luther King - boycott of the bus system
b.	Jo Ann Robinson. - boycott of the bus system	d.	Rosa Parks - fight bus segregation

WALKING FOR JUSTICE
On the night of December 5, 1955, an estimated crowd of 5,000 people gathered to hear the young pastor speak. With passion and eloquence. Dr. King made the following declaration.
There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression . . . . I want it to be known-that we’re going to work with grim and bold determination-to gain justice on buses in this city . And we are not wrong . . . . If we are wrong-the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong-God Almighty is wrong. . . . If we are wrong-justice is a lie.
The impact of King’s speech-the rhythm of his words, the power of his rising and falling voice brought people to their feet. A sense of mission filled the audience as King proclaimed, “If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity, historians will have to pause and say, ‘There lived a great people-a black people-who injected a new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.”’ For 381 days, African Americans refused to ride the buses in Montgomery. In most cases, they had to find other means of transportation by organizing car pools or walking long distances . The boycotters remained nonviolent even after a bomb ripped apart King’s home . (Fortunately, no one was injured.) Finally, in late 1956, the Supreme Court outlawed bus

segregation in response to a lawsuit filed by the boycotters . On December 21, King boarded a Montgomery bus and sat in the front. “It was a great ride,” he declared.

Martin Luther King proposed a course of non-violence in the Montgomery bus boycott because he was not at all sure that a bus boycott was the right thing to do.

true

false

10.

The Montgomery bus boycott lasted just over

a.	a year	c.	a half year
b.	two years	d.	three years

11.

The segregated busses of Montgomery, Alabama were finally outlawed by

a.	the Montgomery City Council	c.	the Supreme Court of the U.S.
b.	the Montgomery bus company	d.	the governor of Alabama

Dr. King and the SCLC The Montgomery bus boycott proved to the world that ordinary African Americans could unite and organize a successful protest movement. It also proved the power of nonviolent resistance, the peaceful refusal to obey unjust laws. Despite threats to his life and family, King urged his followers, “Let nobody pull you so low as to hate them.”

12.

Martin Luther learned from the Montgomery bus boycott that _____ could be used to win the war against segregation

a.	violent aggression	c.	non-violent submission to the law
b.	peaceful resistance to the law	d.	obeying the law

13.

Dr. King thought that hating your enemies was

a.	justified	c.	foolish
b.	necessary	d.	immoral

CHANGING THE WORLD WITH SOUL FORCE
King called his brand of nonviolent resistance “soul force.” He based his ideas on the teachings of several people .

From Jesus, he learned to love one’s enemies.
From writer Henry David Thoreau, he took the concept of civil disobedience-the refusal to obey an unjust law.
From labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, he learned techniques for organizing massive demonstrations.

From Mohandas Gandhi, the leader who helped India throw off British rule, he learned that one could powerfully resist oppression without resorting to violence .

King summed up his philosophy by saying to white racists, “We will not hate you, but we cannot . . . obey your unjust laws . We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.”
Some African Americans questioned King’s peaceful philosophy when, after the Brown decision, anti-black violence swept parts of the Deep South. The violence, aimed at keeping African Americans “in their place,” included the highly publicized 1955 murder of Emmett Till-a 14-year-old who had allegedly flirted with a white woman. There were also shootings and beatings, some fatal, of civil rights workers. Despite these vicious attacks, King steadfastly preached the power of nonviolence.

14.

From _____ Dr. King learned to love your enemies.

a.	A. Philip Randolph,	c.	Jesus
b.	Henry David Thoreau	d.	Gandhi

15.

In 1955, after violent attacks on several African Americans, some black people began to question Dr. King’s non-violent methods. King also began to question his own methods.

true

false

16.

What was “Soul Force?”

a.	The ability to force your enemies with violence to agree with you.	c.	The use of non-violence to convince your enemies to change
b.	The ability to force your enemies to give in, even though they do not agree with you.	d.	The use of force to defeat your enemies

	FROM THE GRASSROOTS UP After the boycott ended, King joined with more than 100 ministers and civil rights leaders in 1957 to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) . The purpose of the SCLC, as stated by King, was “to carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of second-class citizenship .” Using African-American churches as a base, the SCLC planned to stage protests and demonstrations throughout the South. Leaders of the SCLC hoped to build a movement from the grassroots up and to win the support of ordinary African Americans of all ages. King, president of the SCLC, used the
power of his voice and ideas to fuel the movement’s momentum. The nuts and bolts of organizing the SCLC fell to Ella Baker, a former NAACP activist and the granddaughter of a slave minister . While with the NAACP, Baker had served as national field secretary, traveling over 16,000 miles throughout the South . From 1959 to 1961, Baker used her contacts to set up branches of the SCLC in 65 Southern cities . In April 1960, Baker helped students at Shaw University, an African-American university in Raleigh, North Carolina, to organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, pronounced “snick” for short. It had been six years since the Brown case, and many college students viewed the pace of change as too slow. Although these students risked a great deal-losing college scholarships, being expelled from college, being physically harmed-they were determined to challenge the system . SNCC, which hoped to harness the energy of these student protesters, would soon create one of the most important student activist movements in the nation’s history.

17.

The Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) was a _____ based organization.

a.	church	c.	civic
b.	student	d.	business

18.

Who was the organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Council?

a.	Rosa Parks	c.	Martin Luther King
b.	Ella Baker	d.	Thurgood Marshall

19.

Why was Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC organized?

a.	Students were demanding more scholarships	c.	Students thought the pace of integration was too slow
b.	Students did not want to integrate with white students	d.	Students thought the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was moving too fast and not paying attention to concerns of students.

The Movement Spreads Although SNCC adopted King’s ideas in part, its members had ideas of their own. Many wanted a more confrontational strategy and set out to reshape the civil rights movement. In those days there were stores called 5 and dimes. Many of these stores had lunch counters where shoppers could each lunch. Originally KMart was a 5 and dime called Kresgies
DEMONSTRATING FOR FREEDOM The founders of SNCC had models to build on . In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had staged the first sit-ins, in which African-American protesters sat down at segregated lunch counters in Chicago and refused to leave until they were served . In February 1960, African-American students from North Carolina’s Agricultural and Technical College staged a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro . This time, television crews brought coverage of the protest into homes throughout the United States . Day after day, reporters captured the ugly face of racism-scenes of whites beating, jeering at, and pouring food over students who refused to strike back. The coverage sparked many other sit-ins across the South. Store managers called in the police, raised the price of food, and removed counter seats. But the movement continued and spread to the North. There students formed picket lines around national chain stores that maintained segregated lunch counters in the South. NO TURNING BACK By late 1960, students had descended on and desegregated Jim Crow lunch counters in some 48 cities in 11 states . They endured arrests, beatings, suspension from college, and tear gas and fire hoses, but the army of nonviolent students refused to back down . “My mother has always told me that I’m equal to other people,” said Ezell Blair, Jr., one of the students who led the first sit-in 1960. For the rest of the 1960s, many Americans persevered to prove Blair’s mother correct.

20.

A Jim Crow lunch counter is one where

a.	black and whites sat in separate sections of the same counter	c.	food was served that only white people liked
b.	black people were not allowed to sit and eat with white people	d.	food was served that only black people liked

21.

SNCC was comprised mostly of

a.	members of CORE	c.	young civil rights activists
b.	older veterans of the civil rights movement	d.	members of SCLC

22.

Why didn’t the sit-in demonstrators fight back at the people who jeered and humiliated them?

a.	They were following the principles taught by Marcus Garvey	c.	They were afraid of the anti-sit in demonstrators
b.	They were following the lessons of taught by Martin Luther King	d.	They were afraid of going to Southern jails

23.

CORE is an old civil rights organization that has been working for racial equality for many years. CORE stands for

a.	Colored Organization of Racial Enthusiasts	c.	Congress Of Racial Entigration
b.	Congress of Old Racial Energy	d.	Congress of Racial Equality

24.

Demonstrations organized by the SCLC were effective but SNCC demonstrations were not.

true

false

25.

In the 1960’s most Americans outside the South were unaware of the civil rights movement.

true

false