The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement

The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement

Reading comprehension
A. Answer these questions
1. Rosa Parks did not have happy memories of her childhood. Rosa was a small, sickly child. She was also subject to racial taunts by white children in her neighbourhood and she reacted to them physically.
2. Rosa married Raymond Parks who was a member of the NAACP. She soon became active in the Civil Rights Movement herself and was elected secretary of the Montgomery Chapter of the NACCP.
3. Following the Montgomery bus incident, Rosa was arrested but bailed out by friends. The incident
made her an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. She however lost her job as also her husband and they were forced to move in with her mother, brother and sister in law, who lived in Detroit. The civil rights activists used this to their advantage by starting a bus boycott. The boycott lasted all of 381 days before their demands for hire of blacks as bus drivers and seating on a first come first served basis were met.
4. In Detroit, schools were segregated. Services in the black neighbourhoods did not meet a minimum
standard of their white counterparts. Rosa worked to solve issues of education, discrimination in jobs,
welfare and affordable housing.
5. After marriage, prodded by her husband, Rosa completed her high school education. Later while
working as a housekeeper and seamstress for a white couple, with the help of their sponsorship, she
studied at the Highlander Folk School, an education centre for activism in worker’s rights and racial
equality.
B. Think and Answer
1. The experiences Rosa had in her childhood definitely built up to culminate in the Montgomery bus
incident. As said in the passage, “She was tired of giving in every time right from her childhood, it was
now time for action, she thought.”
2. Yes, Rosa Parks did get recognition for her work, both during her life time and after. She received
the NACCP’s highest award and the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr Award. In 1996, she received
the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 199, she was listed in Time magazine’s list of the twenty most
influential people of the twentieth century. On the day of her funeral, all the front seats in the city
buses of Detroit and Montgomery were reserved with black ribbons in her honour. Eight years later,
on her 100th birthday, the US Postal Service released a commemorative stamp called the Rosa Parks
Forever stamp.
C. Answer these questions with reference to the context.
1. a. The “that” being referred to is the fact that the bus took the white children to their school while the black children had to walk to theirs.
b. Rosa said that they had no choice because the bus carried only the white children to their school
and the black children studied in a different school.
c. Rosa realized that the white children had a separate world with their schools and their school buses
while the black children had a separate world with their schools and no buses.
2. a. Rosa said these words because there was no racial segregation at Maxwell Air Force Base and while working there she rode on an integrated trolley and realized that there is an integrated world and there did not necessarily have to be a segregation into black and white worlds.
b. Maxwell was the federal property, Maxwell Air Force Base.
c. Rosa had hitherto only seen two segregated words, one for the whites and the other for the blacks
and had believed that was the way of life. Life here was different in that everything was integrated.
She even got to ride on an integrated trolley with the whites. Thus her eyes were opened to an
integrated world.

E-mail Writing

Cage Bird by Maya Angelou's (summary)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Analysis

First Stanza

A free bird leaps on the back

Of the wind and floats downstream

Till the current ends and dips his wing

In the orange suns rays

And dares to claim the sky.

She refers to nature. She describes the way “a free bird leaps on the back of the wind”. She describes the bird’s flight against the orange sky. The free bird has the right “to claim the sky”. The way she describes the “orange sun rays” gives the reader an appreciation for the natural beauty of the sky, and her description of the way the bird “dips his wing” helps the reader to appreciate the bird in his natural habitat, enjoying his freedom.

Second Stanza

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage

Can seldom see through his bars of rage

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

This stanza is in stark contrast with the first. By using the word “but” to begin this stanza, the speaker prepares the reader for this contrast. Then she describes the “bird that stalks his narrow cage”. The tone is immediately and drastically changed from peaceful, satisfied, and joyful to one that is dark, unnerving, and even frustrating. She describes that this caged first “can seldom see through his bars of rage”. While the free bird gets to enjoy the full sky, the caged bird rarely even gets a glimpse of the sky. She claims that “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied”. Text from her autobiography reveals that Angelou often felt this way in life. She felt restricted from enjoying the freedom that should have been her right as a human being. The speaker then reveals that these are the very reasons that the bird “opens his throat to sing”.

The author felt this way in her own life. She wrote and sang and danced because it was her way of expressing her longing for freedom.

Third Stanza

The free bird thinks of another breeze

And the trade winds soft through

The sighing trees

And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright

Lawn and he names the sky his own.

The third stanza reverts back to the free bird, further cementing the difference between the free bird and the caged bird in the minds of the readers. She writes that a “free bird thinks of another breeze” that he can enjoy the “sighing trees” and be free to find his own food. The tone with which she writes the first and third stanzas so sharply contrasts with the second stanza, that readers can feel the difference. The first and third stanzas give the reader a sense of ecstasy and thrill, which serve to make the second stanza seem all the more droll and even oppressive.

Fourth Stanza

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams

His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

The fourth stanza continues the parallel between the free bird and the caged bird. The first line serves to starkly contrast the last line in the third stanza. It is dark and daunting. The reality of the life of the caged bird is revealed in this line. That bird, “stands on the grave of dreams”. This reveals the author’s feelings about her own dreams. She has so many dreams that have died because she was never given the freedom to achieve all that her white counterparts were able to achieve. Discrimination and Racism made up her cage, and although she sang, she felt her voice was not heard in the wide world, but only by those nearest her cage. The second line of this stanza in not only dark, but even frightening. The speaker describes the bird’s cries as “shouts on a nightmare scream”. At this point, the caged bird is so despondent in his life of captivity that his screams are like that of someone having a nightmare. The author then repeats these lines:

His wings are clipped and his feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

Reaffirming the idea that the bird opens his mouth to sing because his desire for freedom and his desire to express himself cannot be contained.

Fifth Stanza

The caged bird sings with

A fearful trill of things unknown

But longed for still and his

Tune is heard on the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom.

This last stanza focuses on the caged bird yet again. The author implies that even though the caged bird may have never experienced true freedom, deep down that bird still knows that it was created to be free. Although freedom, to the caged bird, is “fearful” because it is “unknown”, he still sings “a fearful trill” because he still longed for freedom. Here, the speaker reveals that his cry for freedom is “heard on the distant hill”. This parallels to the author and her cry for freedom in the form of equality. She feels that her cries are heard, but only as a soft background noise. She still feels that she is caged and that although she sings, her cries are heard only as a distant noise.

The last line states, “For the caged bird sings of freedom”. With this, the speaker implies that although the caged bird may never have experienced freedom, he still sings of it because he was created for freedom. This is paralleled to the African American struggle in Maya Angelou’s time. She feels that black Americans wrote and sang and danced and cried out for the freedom they deserved, but they were only heard as a distant voice. Yet, this would not stop them from crying out for freedom and equality because they knew they were made for freedom, and they would not relent until they were given their rights as human beings to enjoy the freedom they were created to enjoy.

Exercise for complex preposition

Test your English preposition prowess by filling in the gaps in the following sentences with an appropriate word:

1. With respect ____ your order of 03/05/06, we regret to inform you that this book is no longer in print.

2. _____ reference to the question of overtime, the board of directors have decided that they cannot change their decision.

3. The company make a record profit last year thanks ____ increased exports to China.

4. I am going to tell him what I think of him regardless _____ the consequences.

5. Prior ____ their merger, we never had any problems with that supplier.

6. There will be restrictions on the water supply owing ____ the prolonged drought.

7. I’m afraid that Ms. Simms is _____ of the office at the moment.

8. On _____ of the pollution problem it is also almost impossible to find somewhere to park.

9. May I thank you on _________ of the entire committee? We are really grateful for your hard work.

10. Who’s this standing ______ to your sister in this photo?

11. Could I have a cup of tea instead _____ the coffee?

12. ____ terms of the weather, you couldn’t choose a better resort.

13. We loved our holiday in Cork in _______ of the rain.

14. What’s the boss’s opinion in relation ____ the cutbacks?

15. In regard ____ your letter of the 15^th, congratulations!

16. The company’s results are in ______ with the stock markets expectations.

17. Jenny, you stand in front ____ your father and Bobby, you go on the left.

18. They’re organizing a concert in _____ of the Somali drought victims.

19. In ___________ with his wishes, his ashes were sprinkled into the Irish Sea.

20. Every member of my old class came, except _____ Eric.

21. My train arrived three quarters of an hour late due ____ ‘leaves on the line’.

22. I was reluctant to go but _________ to my expectations, the concert was rather good.

23. He told an anecdote about the first time he met Ian by ____ of an introduction to Ian’s speech.

24. She explained my dietary needs by ______ of sign language and mime.

25. Her head hurt ________ of the smoke and the noise.

26. The boss was asking for you while you were _______ from your desk.

27. As regards _____ your chances of promotion, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

28. Apart _____ the insipid food, the hotel was very good.

29. As ____ Jackie, she’s now working in a travel agency.

30. According ____ Philip, Desmond and Denise are getting married in the summer.

Complex Preposition

A complex preposition is a word group (such as "along with" or "on account of") that functions like an ordinary one-word preposition.

Complex prepositions can be divided into two groups:

• two-word units (a word + a simple preposition), such as apart from (also known as compound prepositions)
• three-word units (a simple preposition + a noun + a simple preposition), such as by means of (also known as phrasal prepositions).

• Examples of Complex Prepositions in English

  according to
  ahead of
  along with
  apart from
  as for
  as well as
  aside from
  away from
  because of
  but for
  by means of
  by virtue of
  by way of
  close to
  contrary to
  due to
  except for
  far from
  for lack of
  in accordance with
  in addition to
  in back of
  in between
  in (the) case of
  in charge of
  in exchange for
  in front of
  in light of
  in line with
  in place of
  in (the) process of
  in regard to
  inside of
  in spite of
  instead of
  in view of
  near to
  next to
  on account of
  on behalf of
  on top of
  out of
  outside of
  owing to
  prior to
  subsequent to
  such as
  thanks to
  together with
  up against
  up to
  up until
  with respect to

Tenses chart

Chart for tenses and their types with examples.