3 For Text A – To be used for Section A Teacher’s Use Text A: The Bus Journey The year is 1955. Carolyn is taking the bus home with her mother when something unexpected happens. It was just another routine bus ride for me that day, or so I thought. 1st paragraph It was December 1,1955 and I was eight years old. I was anxious to get home to work on the present I was making for my father for Christmas. My mother was sitting close beside me busily working on her knitting and I was looking out the window when all of the sudden I began hearing angry voices. "Lady, I thought I told you to move to the back of the bus!" I heard 2nd paragraph other voices being raised and voicing the same orders. I strained to see around those in 3rd paragraph front of me until I found the “lady” to whom all the yells were being directed. I was surprised at who I saw. It was my friend Annie’s grandmother, Rosa Parks (I always called her Mrs. Rosa)! I looked up at my mother to find out 4th paragraph why all these people were angry with Mrs. Rosa, but she told me to be quiet and went back to her knitting as if she was trying to pretend nothing was happening. The men flanked her, staring down at her and were getting angrier 5th paragraph with every second that passed. I heard someone behind us say that they were upset because Mrs. Rosa would not give up her seat on the bus for some white men who had just come aboard. P6/ENG/CA1/20-21 P6/ENG/CA1/21-22 [Turn Over] 4 You see, back when I was a little girl, black people were supposed 6th paragraph For to ride only in the back of the bus and allow the white people to ride Teacher’s in the front or even to take our seats if there were no other seats Use available. The term people used for it (even though I didn’t understand it back then), was segregation. This meant that black people and white people were supposed to be segregated, or separated from one another. Mrs. Rosa sat as straight as a board in her seat and didn’t look 7th paragraph anywhere but straight ahead. The bus driver stood up and towered over the little woman as he shook his finger in her face and yelled at her so loud it hurt my ears. The tension on the bus was getting stronger as all the white people 8th paragraph began getting angry at Mrs. Rosa’s impudence. The bus driver’s temper was a volcano, ready to explode, and the black people sitting in the back with my mother and I began getting nervous about what was going to happen. This was certainly going to be exciting! No matter what those men did, Mrs. Rosa withstood their efforts, 9th paragraph and would not give up her seat. Eventually, the bus driver called the police and Mrs. Rosa was arrested! I could not believe what was happening! I had never seen anything like this before. I am a grown woman now as I remember that story. However, no 10th paragraph matter how many years go by there will never be a time when I cannot remember every detail of what happened on the bus that day. I was too young to understand it all, but Mrs. Rosa’s refusal to give her seat to that man began a huge adventure called the "Montgomery Bus Boycott." For a long time, black men, women, 11th paragraph boys and girls and even many white people united, and refused to ride the buses because their perception was that everybody should be treated equally no matter what the colour of their skin. I will never, ever forget all the times my mother and I walked 12th paragraph several miles to work and school. The boycott to promote equality P6/ENG/CA1/20-21 P6/ENG/CA1/21-22 [Turn Over] 5 had put our lives under a microscope, and there was lots of For speculation as to when it would end, but eventually, legislation was Teacher’s passed saying that black people had just as much right as anyone Use else to sit anywhere they wanted on a bus. I will never forget the first time I rode on a bus after the boycott was 13th paragraph over. It was the greatest experience of my life! After almost a year, my mother and I stepped onto the bus in November of 1956. I sat up straight and tall and was so proud as my mother and I took our seats not in the back, but in the very front of the bus. Looking back, I realize now that Mrs. Rosa was such a brave 14th paragraph woman. Even when all those people were angry, she refused to give in, and her act of heroism in standing up for what she believed in was one of the factors in breaking the cycle of racism and segregation. Because of her legacy, my children today can enjoy every right and 15th paragraph freedom that anyone else in this great country enjoys. P6/ENG/CA1/20-21 P6/ENG/CA1/21-22 [Turn Over]
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