Beginning in the 1880s, southern states and municipalities established statutes called Jim Crow laws that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The following passage is concerned with the fight against racial discrimination and segregation and the struggle for justice for African Americans in post-World War II United States.

The post-World War II era marked a period of unprecedented energy against the second-class citizenship accorded to African Americans in many parts of the nation. Resistance to racial segregation and discrimination with strategies like those described above—civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, marches, protests, boycotts, “freedom rides,” and rallies—received national attention as newspaper, radio, and television reporters and cameramen documented the struggle to end racial inequality.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested in December 1955, she set off a train of events that generated a momentum the civil rights movement had never before experienced. Local civil rights leaders were hoping for such an opportunity to test the city’s segregation laws. Deciding to boycott the buses, the African-American community soon formed a new organization to supervise the boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was chosen as the first MIA leader. The boycott, more successful than anyone hoped, led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregated buses.

In 1960, four black freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro strolled into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. They were not served, but they stayed until closing time. The next morning they came with twenty-five more students. Two weeks later similar demonstrations had spread to several cities, within a year similar peaceful demonstrations took place in over a hundred cities North and South. At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the students formed their own organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “Snick”). The students’ bravery in the face of verbal and physical abuse led to integration in many stores even before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The August 28, 1963, March on Washington riveted the nation’s attention. Rather than the anticipated hundred thousand marchers, more than twice that number appeared, astonishing even its organizers. Blacks and whites, side by side, called on President John F. Kennedy and Congress to provide equal access to public facilities, quality education, adequate employment, and decent housing for African Americans. During the assembly at the Lincoln Memorial, the young preacher who had led the successful Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a stirring message with the refrain, “I Have a Dream.”

There were also continuing efforts to legally challenge segregation through the courts. Success crowned these efforts: the Brown decision in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 helped bring about the demise of the entangling web of legislation that bound blacks to second-class citizenship. One hundred years after the Civil War, blacks and their white allies still pursued the battle for equal rights in every area of American life. While there is more to achieve in ending discrimination, major milestones in civil rights laws are on the books for the purpose of regulating equal access to public accommodations, equal justice before the law, and equal employment, education, and housing opportunities. African Americans have had unprecedented openings in many fields of learning and in the arts. The black struggle for civil rights also inspired other liberation and rights movements, including those of Native Americans, Latinos, and women, and African Americans have lent their support to liberation struggles in Africa.

The passage is primarily concerned with

a. enumerating the injustices that African Americans faced.
b. describing the strategies used in the struggle for civil rights.
c. showing how effective sit-down strikes can be in creating change.
d. describing the nature of discrimination and second-class citizenship.
e. recounting the legal successes of the civil rights movement.



The author cites the example of Rosa Parks refusing to relinquish her bus seat in order to

a. demonstrate the accidental nature of political change.
b. show a conventional response to a common situation.
c. describe a seminal event that influenced a larger movement.
d. portray an outcome instead of a cause.
e. give a detailed account of what life was like in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.



The word test most nearly means

a. analyze.
b. determine.
c. prove.
d. quiz.
e. challenge.



The passage suggests that the college students in Greensboro, North Carolina

a. were regulars at the Woolworth lunch counter.
b. wanted to provoke a violent reaction.
c. were part of an ongoing national movement of lunch-counter demonstrations.
d. inspired other students to protest peacefully against segregation.
e. did not plan to create a stir.



The passage implies that the 1963 March on Washington

a. resulted in immediate legislation prohibiting segregation in public accommodations.
b. was a successful demonstration that drew attention to its causes.
c. was overshadowed by the rousing speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
d. represented only the attitudes of a fringe group.
e. reflected the unanimous public opinion that segregation laws must end.



The term refrain as it is used most nearly means

a. song lyric.
b. allegory.
c. recurring phrase.
d. poem stanza.
e. aria.



The term second class citizenship most nearly refers to

a. native or naturalized people who do not owe allegiance to a government.
b. foreign-born people who wish to become a citizen of a new country.
c. those who deny the rights and privileges of a free person.
d. having inferior status and rights in comparison to other citizens.
e. having inferior status and rights under a personal sovereign.



All of the following questions can be explicitly answered on the basis of the passage EXCEPT

a. What are some of the barriers African Americans faced in post-war America?
b. What tangible achievements did the civil rights movement attain?
c. What judicial rulings are considered milestones in the struggle for civil rights?
d. What strategies did civil rights protesters use to provoke political change?
e. What hurtles remain today for ending racial discrimination in the United States?