Unit 2: Vocabulary from Readings 1

On December 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, a forty-two-year-old seamstress whom my husband aptly described as “a charming person with a radiant personality,” boarded a bus to go home after a long day working and shopping.

As it happened, a white woman found one of our leaflets, which her Negro maid had left in the kitchen. The irate woman immediately telephoned the newspapers to let the white community know what the blacks were up to.

“We are using it to give birth to freedom…and to urge men to comply with the law of the land. Our concern was not to put the bus company out of business, but to put justice in business.”

Serene after his inner struggle, Martin joined me in our sitting room.

We were so excited we could hardly speak coherently.

How could he make his speech both militant enough to rouse people to action and yet devoid of hate and resentment? He was determined to do both.

Our method must be persuasion, not coercion.

As Martin finished speaking, the audience rose cheering in exaltation.

The doctors were so very sure of themselves that Mother's faith in me seemed almost an impertinence.

She had nothing in the world to go by, not a scrap of evidence to support her conviction that, though my body was crippled, my mind was not.

That was a momentous decision as far as my future life was concerned. It meant that I would always have my mother on my side to help me fight all the battles that were to come, and to inspire me with new strength when I was almost beaten

It looked as though there was some justification for my relatives’ contention that I was an idiot and beyond help.

That day, however, my left foot, apparently by its own volition, reached out and very impolitely took the chalk out of my sister's hand.

The room was full of flame and shadow that danced before my eyes and lulled my taut nerves into a sort of waking sleep.