A. She refused to give up her seat to a white man because she was tired.

B. Her refusal to give up her seat on December 1, 1955 was her first act of resistance against
segregated buses.

C. As Secretary of the local NAACP chapter and leader of its Youth Group, she had an
important history of activism before her action that began the bus boycott.

D. At the time of this incident, she was an elderly seamstress who had never been politically
active.

Answer: C. At the time of the boycott, the 43-year-old Ms. Parks already had several run-ins with bus drivers because she opposed the law requiring Blacks to enter the bus from the back, yet pay in the front. In fact, the driver on December 1, 1955 who called the police had previously thrown her off the bus for refusing to enter through the back door. In addition to her NAACP activities, Ms. Parks was involved in trying to desegregate Montgomery’s schools and had attended an interracial meeting at Tennessee’s Highlander Folk Center, a key adult education facility heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 25–31l, The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth by Herb Kohl

Other Resources
Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954–1965. By Juan Williams and the Eyes on the Prize Production Team, Penguin: 1997. Pp. 59–90.



2. During the 1960s a free breakfast program for children in Oakland, CA was sponsored by:

A. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

B. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

C. The Big Brother/Big Sister Organization

D. The National Urban League

Answer: B. During the 1960s, the Black Panther Party’s provocative rhetoric of armed self-defense often led to demonized representations of them as a violent group. The BPP actually presented a progressive party platform, which quotes the Declaration of Independence and advocates free health care for the poor, full employment, decent housing, and an end to police brutality. Projects like the Free Breakfast Program reflected the Panthers’ commitment to community service and organizing.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 36–37, The Black Panthers and Community Control. Brief excerpt on the Panther Party and their push for democracy and community control.
Pp. 149, “What We Want,” by Kwame Toure (Stokeley Carmichael)
Pp. 145, LESSON: “The Black Panther Party Legacy and Lessons for the Future” by Debbie Wei. Handouts available online at www.civilrightsteaching.org.
Pp. 153, LESSON: “What We Want, What We Believe” by Wayne Au. Handouts available online at www.civilrightsteaching.org.

Other Resources
The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Edited by Charles E. Jones. Baltimore, Md.: Black Classic Press, 1998.
The Black Panthers Speak. By Philip S. Foner. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995.



3. After Rosa Parks was arrested, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was first set in motion when:

A. The Women’s Political Council, under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson, distributed
35,000 leaflet urging 42,000 black residents of Montgomery to boycott public transportation.

B. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech to Montgomery’s largest black congregation, urging
that the buses be boycotted until the bus company agreed to integrate them.

C. Civil rights lawyers from the Justice Department came to Montgomery and convinced
prominent African American ministers to initiate the boycott.

D. Leaders of Montgomery’s black business community urged their employees not to ride
the buses.

Answer: A. The crucial roles of women, grassroots organizers, and rank-and-file citizens in the Civil Rights Movement are often minimized or left out of U.S. history books. Under the leadership of Jo Ann Robinson, a college English professor, the Montgomery Women’s Political Council began organizing against segregated buses in 1949. This lay the groundwork which enabled them to mobilize black citizens quickly after Rosa Parks was arrested. NAACP leader and labor organizer E.D. Nixon bailed Ms. Parks out of jail and convened a meeting of ministers the first night of the boycott to provide leadership. At that meeting, the ministers formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected the 27-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. as its leader. During the 381-day boycott, thousands of blacks walked to work. The movement depended on the many people who organized fundraising activities, car pools, and coordinated taxi service. King’s oratory and leadership helped sustain the movement, but its victory was built on the daily contributions of many unsung activists.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 96, LESSON: “Montgomery Bus Boycott—Organizing Strategies and Challenges” by Alana Murray. Handouts available online at www.civilrightsteaching.org.

Online Extras
Black American History: Montgomery Bus Boycott. By Toonari.
www.africanaonline.com/montgomery.htm

Other Resources
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. Pp. 29–30.
Eyes On the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954–1965. By Juan Williams and the Eyes on the Prize Production Team, Penguin Press, 1986. Pp. 59–90.



4. Which of the following states had the largest number of Ku Klux Klan membership during the 1920s?

A. Mississippi

B. Georgia

C. Oregon

D. South Carolina

Answer: C. Racism in regions beyond the South has often been overlooked. During the 1920s, the KKK flourished in many Northern states and enjoyed a surprisingly respectable status. Confederate veterans first established the Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee at the end of the Civil War. The Klan opposed Reconstruction initiatives that extended voting rights to Blacks, as well as other measures that protected black economic and political rights. The second, more widespread Klan was established during World War I, in the context of the glorification of the KKK in D.W. Griffith’s silent film, “The Birth of a Nation,” and such actions as Woodrow Wilson’s re-segregation of D.C. federal employees. The new Klan grew to 6 million members at its peak in the 1920s, spreading to several regions of the United States and even reaching Canada. It gained political respectability within mainstream political institutions, with many Klan members serving in state legislatures.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 211, “Contemporary Police Brutality and Misconduct: A Continuation of the Legacy of Racial Violence” by the Black Radical Congress

5. During the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), which of following events did NOT occur in the South?

A. Blacks elected many representatives to state legislatures throughout the South.

B. Fourteen black representatives and two black senators served in the U.S. Congress.

C. The integrated Southern state legislatures mandated the establishment of compulsory
universal public education for the first time in the South.

D. The federal government provided each male, freed from slavery, with forty acres and a mule.

E. All of the above

Answer: D. Historical accounts have often downplayed the accomplishments of Reconstruction and the considerable extent of black civic engagement during that era. In 1870, John Roy Lynch joined the first group of black representatives elected to Mississippi’s state legislature. He was 22 years old. By 25, Lynch was the first African American from Mississippi to sit in the House of Representatives. Merely ten years prior, Lynch had been enslaved. Now armed with the right to vote, black men elected hundreds of black legislators to state offices (as well as the 16 who served in the U.S. Congress), despite the harassment and violence against blacks that preceded elections. The new black politicians passed ambitious civil rights and public education laws. Lynch spent the last years of his life trying to correct the negative view of Reconstruction that had become accepted by most Americans by the early 1900s. In 1913, he wrote The Facts of Reconstruction, an autobiographical defense of the period. John Roy Lynch died in Chicago in 1939 at the age of 92. It wasn't until 1987, more than a hundred years after Lynch’s last term in Washington, that Mississippi elected another black representative to the U.S. Congress.

“If you were in the United States in 1860, and someone told you that in less than a decade, African Americans would be liberated as slaves, they would serve in the Union army, the men would be given the right to vote, they would be elected to office, people would really think you belonged in the lunatic asylum. This was an amazing set of transformations in a very, very short period.” —Historian Eric Foner

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 249, “Eager to Learn, Ready to Defend: Education during Reconstruction”
This provides further information on how the Civil Rights Movement began far before Brown v. Board. Understanding the Reconstruction Era is key to formulating a cohesive story about the Movement.

Online Extras
PBS’s American Experience Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/

Other Resources
Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution. By Eric Foner. New York: The New Press, 1996.
Freedom Road. By Howard Fast. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995.

6. Toward the end of his life, Malcolm X believed all of the following EXCEPT:

A. The oppression of African Americans should be considered a human rights rather than a
civil rights issue and on that basis taken to the United Nations as a problem to be resolved.

B. African Americans were entitled to the right of self-defense if attacked by whites.

C. Blacks could best obtain freedom by celebrating their own culture and attaining control
of their own communities rather than integrating into white society.

D. All whites were so completely racist that it was a waste of time to talk to them.

Answer: D. In March 1964 Malcolm terminated his relationship with the Nation of Islam. Malcolm decided to found his own religious organization, the Muslim Mosque, Inc. He also established the secular Organization for African American Unity. It was Malcolm’s pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia that proved life-altering. For the first time, Malcolm shared his beliefs with Muslims of diverse cultural and racial identities, and he found the response to be overwhelmingly positive. He returned to the United States with a new outlook. Still advocating African-American cultural affirmation and self-determination, he expressed respect for individual whites that engaged in honest dialogue with him and urged whites to organize against racism in their own communities.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 142, “Black Nationalism and Black Pride: The Ballot or the Bullet” by Malcolm X
Pp. 495, “Malcolm Is ’Bout More Than Wearing a Cap” by Michael Warr

Other Resources
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. By Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.
The Malcolm X Encyclopedia. Edited by Robert L. Jenkins and Mfanya Donald Tryman. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.



7. Which of the following was the overarching goal of the Civil Rights Movement?

A. Integration

B. Full access to all bus seats

C. Equality, empowerment, and democracy

D. 40 acres and a mule

Answer: C. Different leaders and activists often held differing views about both tactics and ultimate visions of a just society, and the evolution of the freedom struggle meant that people’s perspectives changed over time. But leaders as diverse as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X realized that it would take fundamental economic, social, and political changes to create an America in which all people were truly free.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 55, “Teaching Eyes on The Prize: Teaching Democracy” by Judy Richardson



8. The crucial element enabling progress in winning civil rights was:

A. Grassroots activism and organizing

B. The federal government

C. The March on Washington

D. National civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Roy Wilkins of the NAACP

Answer: A. Inspiring leaders, large mass demonstrations, and eventually federal civil rights legislation and enforcement all contributed to changes toward greater equality, but grassroots organizers laid the essential foundation of the movement. Largely unacknowledged in history books, they performed the unglamorous, painstaking, and often dangerous work of building trust, commitment, and collective action. Their example and leadership prompted local people to take the courageous steps to attend a rally, try to integrate a segregated facility, or walk down to the courthouse to attempt to register to vote. In cities and towns across America, it was these activities that brought about the Civil Rights revolution.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 387, “’Until Victory Comes’: May 1941 Call to Negro America”
Pp. 380, “Cooperative Action in Black Los Angeles” by Homer Fleetwood II

Other Resources
I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. By Charles Payne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

9. African Americans were not the only group fighting for equality in the 1960s and 1970s. Which of the following groups were also fighting for equal rights and/or self-determination?

A. Chicano/Mexican Americans

B. Native Americans

C. Asian Americans

D. Gays/lesbians

E. All of the above

Answer: E. Too often history is taught as segmented, isolated incidents in time. Traditionally, the Civil Rights Movement is viewed solely as a struggle for black Americans, by black Americans. Actually, the Civil Rights Movement was a struggle for democracy which inspired oppressed people nationally and internationally. There are many powerful examples of domestic and international solidarity throughout the 20th century.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 120, “The Borning Struggle: An Interview with Bernice Johnson Reagon” by Dick Cluster
Pp. 393, “Cesar Chavez on How It Began” by Luis Torres
Pp. 396, “El Acto: Studying the Mexican-American Experience through Farmworkers’ Theater” by George W. Chilcoat
Pp. 336, “I Came From a Yellow Seed” by Nelson Nagai
Pp. 346, “Sisters in Arms” by David Hill

Other Resources
Viva la Causa! Video by the SWOP and Elizabeth Martinez on the history of the Chicano movement.
Lemon Grove Incident and Mendez v. Westminister. Videos documenting two of the first court desegregation cases, both pre-dating Brown v Board, which involved Mexican American students.



10. In 2002, over 50,000 people rallied in the “Mobilization for Public Education” in response to New York City’s proposed cut of $1 billion from the city’s public school budget. This demonstration was planned and coordinated by:

A. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

B. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

C. The Green Party

D. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and the United Federation of Teachers

E. All of the above

Answer: D. In contrast to popular perception, many young people continue to provide leadership in struggles for social justice in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. At the first National Hip-Hop Summit in New York City in June 2001, participants founded the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN). The organization has held summits in several cities, including an August 2003 summit in Philadelphia that registered 11,000 new voters. HSAN unites hip-hop artists, entertainment industry leaders, education advocates, civil rights leaders, and youth leaders to combat poverty and injustice. Among their goals are increased voter registration among young people; the end of class, race, and gender discrimination; universal health care; the elimination of poverty; a clean environment; and the restoration of voting rights for felons who have served their time. Their website is www.hsan.org.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 500, “We the Peeps: After Three Decades Chillin’ in the Hood, Hip-Hop Is Finding Its Voice Politically” by Teresa Wiltz
Pp. 507, “The Hip-Hop Revolution” by Manning Marable
Pp. 498, LESSON: “Where Is the Activism of the Hip-Hop Generation?” by Todd Steven Burroughs



11. According to the 2000 federal census, the most segregated city in the United States is:

A. Detroit, MI

B. Birmingham, AL

C. Houston, TX

D. Macon, GA

Answer: A. Segregation has always been a national phenomenon rather than a purely Southern one, even when most African Americans lived in the South. Blacks started to move north at an accelerated rate during World War I in what came to be known as the Great Migration. Most settled in Northern ghettoes, swelling these segregated enclaves in many cities. In 2000, the ten most segregated cities were Detroit, Gary, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark, New York City, Cincinnati, and St. Louis.

12. During most of the 20th century, Blacks were prevented from voting by:

A. Intimidation, economic retaliation, and violence

B. “Poll taxes” that many poor people could not afford

C. Legal devices like the “grandfather clause”

D. Literacy tests

E. All of the above

Answer: E. After the Civil War, many African Americans took grave risks to exercise the right to vote, encountering relentless and multifaceted white resistance. While there were important pockets of black voting strength in the South (primarily in urban areas), it was not until the mid-1960s that the Civil Rights Movement was able to decisively turn the tide against black disenfranchisement. One of the best ways to learn about the grassroots work of the Civil Rights Movement is to read the accounts of voter registration campaigns. Here one can learn about the incredible obstacles faced and the strength and determination of the people who literally risked their lived to exercise their legal right to vote.

MOVEING FORWARD…

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
Pp. 207, “The Color of Elections” by Bob Wing

Other Resources
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. By Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer. New York: Bantam Books, 1991.
I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. By Charles Payne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Freedom Song. Film with produced by and starring Danny Glover. TNT Production. No longer available for sale, but may be found in libraries and video stores.