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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Claudette sit at the rally?

2. What was given as the reason for the segregation laws?

3. How did King characterize the kind of justice they seek?

4. When did Claudette go to court the second time?

5. What did the court receive after its decision?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was Parks considered a good figurehead for the bus boycott?

2. How and when did the bus boycott get started?

3. How did the blacks get around Montgomery during the bus boycott?

4. How did Claudette become known again in the 1970's and how did she feel about that?

5. How did the segregationists fight the bus boycott?

6. What did the three judges think about the court case and what was the end result?

7. How long did the judges take with their decision and what was Mayor Gayle's response?

8. Why did Claudette leave school and why did she feel left out of the bus boycott movement?

9. What did Martin Luther King see on December 5th? What was held to commemorate it?

10. How did the boycott protesters feel about the court's decision and why? What did the court begin to receive?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Claudette was most curious about how whites came to rule them. She was taught that whites thought they were a special race, but she did not believe it.

1. Do you think the history blacks learned in school was the truth about how whites came to "rule" them? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. What changes do you think it makes to black children's lives now that black history is taught in schools? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. What evidence do you think Claudette saw in her life to make her believe that whites were not a special race? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the following:

1. Why do you think it is important that this book was written? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Do you think this book did what the author set out to do? Why or why not? Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Explain why you might or might not read another book by this author about another real life person. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Segregation laws made a lot of difference on the bus because blacks have to sit in the back. Blacks depended on buses to reach their white employers. In Montgomery, if seats were full and a white person came in, a black person had to get up. It did not matter how old, sick or young the black person was or how many blacks sat in a seat.

1. Discuss what you think the reason for segregation was in terms of holding power over others. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

2. Discuss the mechanism of oppression in terms of the emotional and self-esteem benefits the oppressor receives by feeling superior to another person. Include in your discussion how segregation enhanced the effect. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

3. Discuss the reasons segregationist used for implementing and enforcing segregation. Use examples from the text and your own life to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,075 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample