While the World Watched: Introduction–Chapter 5

by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
In 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four African-American girls. In this memoir, survivor Carolyn Maull McKinstry recounts the bombing and life in the South under Jim Crow laws.

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: Introduction–Chapter 5, Chapters 6–11, Chapters 12–18, Chapter 19–Barack Obama's Letter
35 words 1580 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. inhumane
    reflecting a lack of pity or compassion
    For twenty years after these experiences, I tried hard to forget the senseless deaths, the inhumane injustices, the vicious German shepherds, and children getting arrested right on the streets of downtown Birmingham.
  2. segregated
    separated or isolated from others or a main group
    NOVEMBER 13, 1956: Supreme Court affirms ban on segregated seating on Alabama buses.
    DECEMBER 25, 1956: Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s house in Birmingham is bombed.
  3. castrate
    remove the testicles of a male animal
    SEPTEMBER 2,1957: Klan members kidnap and castrate Edward Aaron in Birmingham.
    SEPTEMBER 24,1957: The “Little Rock Nine” enter Central High under the protection of the United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
  4. confrontation
    the act of hostile groups opposing each other
    Dr. King called the Birmingham campaign Project C, with the C standing for “confrontation.”
  5. ingrained
    deeply rooted; firmly fixed or held
    He waited tables at the elite, white-members-only Birmingham Country Club in prestigious Mountain Brook, a city with old money and deeply ingrained segregated ways.
  6. mandatory
    required by rule
    He did his job well, responded with the mandatory “Yes, Sir” to diners’ demands, and pretty much just kept his mouth shut.
  7. racist
    discriminatory on the basis of skin color
    But I have no doubt that during the thirty years he worked there, he learned much about racist Birmingham.
  8. unwieldy
    difficult to work with or manipulate
    It was years before we realized that his unwieldy rules were designed to protect us from the evil possibilities of the mean-spirited world around us.
  9. integrity
    moral soundness
    “It appears that I have not yet taught my son the meaning of character and integrity,” Daddy wrote.
  10. poised
    marked by balance or equilibrium and readiness for action
    In the other window, my favorite one, was the kind-faced Jesus, poised with his hand in front of a large wooden door.
  11. primp
    dress or groom with elaborate care
    I called to four of my friends who were primping in front of the restroom’s large lounge mirror.
  12. raspy
    unpleasantly harsh or grating in sound
    But I could hear it when she spoke—the raspy breathing, the gathered mucus, the slightly mechanical tone.
  13. naivete
    lack of sophistication or worldliness
    Not only did I lose four friends, but I also lost my innocence and naivete about people and about the world in general.
  14. Jim Crow
    barrier preventing blacks from participating in activities
    My parents moved to Birmingham when I was two years old, and there I came face-to-face with Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation.
  15. emancipation
    freeing someone from the control of another
    Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
  16. manacle
    shackle that can be locked around the wrist
    One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
  17. languish
    lose vigor, health, or flesh, as through grief
    One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
  18. discontent
    a longing for something better than the present situation
    This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
  19. demeanor
    the way a person behaves toward other people
    Jesus’ eyes had an inviting look, a calm demeanor, a divine patience as he stood outside the wooden door and knocked.
  20. detrimental
    causing harm or injury
    Chief Justice Earl Warren stated, “Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children ... for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group.”
  21. infiltrate
    enter a group or organization in order to spy on the members
    Powerful white men—state and city leaders, as well as the Klan-infiltrated police department—used intimidation and bombs to keep blacks and whites separated.
  22. malapropism
    misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar
    As Eugene “Bull” Connor said in one of his classic malapropisms, “White and Negro are not to segregate together.”
  23. precocious
    characterized by exceptionally early development
    My grandmother had told me I was precocious.
  24. somber
    serious and gloomy in character
    In the lone, faded, wedding photograph, she is looking directly into the camera, her eyes serious and somber, her small body robed in a full-sleeved, polka-dot wedding dress.
  25. scurry
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    Then I heard and felt on the floor beneath me a stampede of feet—moving, running, scurrying to escape the building.
  26. commotion
    a disorderly outburst or tumult
    People from the neighborhood and the nearby boardinghouse had heard the commotion and were now pouring onto the church property.
  27. tragedy
    an event resulting in great loss and misfortune
    In the hospital that day, there was one glimmer of hope in the midst of so much tragedy: a little black girl with pieces of glass penetrating her face did not have to experience the same treatment my grandmother had just a few years earlier.
  28. dismember
    separate the limbs from the body
    Cynthia’s head was dismembered from the rest of her body.
  29. morgue
    a building or room where dead bodies are kept before burial
    At the morgue, Denise’s mother removed the rock and took it home with her.
  30. woe
    intense mournfulness
    An air of woe and doom came over me.
  31. volatility
    the quality of being unpredictable and affected by emotion
    Until that moment, I had not understood the depth of the volatility between blacks and whites in Birmingham.
  32. holocaust
    an act of mass destruction and loss of life
    He added that unless “immediate Federal steps are taken,” there will be “in Birmingham and Alabama the worst racial holocaust this Nation has ever seen.”
  33. engulf
    flow over or cover completely
    Darkness engulfed Birmingham, Alabama, on that tragic day of sorrow and shame.
  34. depravity
    moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
    Our family would spend the rest of the evening quiet and somber, often in prayer, contemplating such a depth of hatred and depravity.
  35. pervasive
    spreading or spread throughout
    He blamed politicians who catered to racist votes, newspaper editors who fueled the racial tension, and church and business leaders who refused to take responsibility for the pervasive racial hatred in the city.
Created on Tue Dec 02 19:43:08 EST 2014 (updated Wed Sep 05 14:28:33 EDT 2018)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.