Creating Texts 2

Question 1

1. Head Down

Answer 1

Keep your head down, you hear? Look the other way, you understand? Don’t try to be a hero. The only thing these people can see is the colour of your skin.

Question 2

2. Parent’s words

Answer 2

1. His parent’s words echoed in his head, words drilled into him for as long as he could remember.
2. A mantra he always tried to follow, making himself as small and insignificant as possible.
3. He’d drink from the fountain labelled ‘coloured’ instead of ‘white’, and would ignore the stares from others when he walked into shops.
4. For as long as he could remember he had been taught that the world was black and white.

Question 3

3. Discrimination

Answer 3

1. Although he was just 15 years old, he understood why he had to do these things.
2. 1950s America was a place filled to the brim with prejudice, violence, and hatred towards people like him.
3. There seemed to be no end in sight to such discrimination, such contempt, that his people had suffered for so long.
4. No end, at least, until that one day. That day he boarded his usual bus, heading straight for the back where he was supposed to sit.
5. That day where he looked on in amazement as a woman, a person of colour just as he was, settled herself into a seat at the front of the coach, an area strictly reserved for white passengers.

Question 4

4. Tension

Answer 4

1. Almost immediately tension filled the inside of the vehicle, a sense of hostility so heavy that it made everything seem to move in slow motion.
2. ‘Keep your head down’, his parents had told him. Yet he found his eyes locked onto the woman at the front of the bus.
3. Words began to be whispered and fingers began to be pointed as the people on the bus noticed what was happening.
4. The driver had noticed too, bringing the coach to a halt and demanding that the woman leave her seat and make space for the white passengers to sit.
5. She refused. The driver said that he’d call the police. The woman replied with ‘you may do that’.
6. The driver, clearly not expecting such a straightforward answer, hesitated before striding back to his seat and grabbing the phone that hung there.

Question 5

5. Look around

Answer 5

1. He looked around him. Those at the front of the bus were all looking with various degrees of frustration towards the woman.
2. If she had noticed such reactions, the woman appeared not to mind, continuing to sit unyieldingly in her chair.
3. Those sitting with him at the back looked more worried than angered at the situation unfolding, and many had begun to leave the bus out of fear for what might ensue.
4. Despite this, he knew that there was no way he was leaving. As much as he had been told to walk away from trouble, all he knew was that he was drawn to the courage of the woman refusing to leave her seat.
5. Before his very eyes was someone who was defying and refusing to obey the rules that he had been taught to follow.
6. To the boy, her resistant actions had broken down the barriers that he had been behind for so long.
7. Like a demolition worker, she had begun to chip and hammer away at a grand marble statue, one that represented the mistreatment that his people had been forced to tolerate for years.

Question 6

6. Police

Answer 6

1. He continued to stare at the woman for the next ten minutes, before a cacophony of sirens slowly came within earshot.
2. Two police officers strode into the bus, grabbing the woman and forcing her to stand.
3. Despite the roughness of the two men the woman did not utter a sound, holding her head high as she was escorted into a police vehicle.

Question 7

7. Silence

Answer 7

1. The young boy remained seated in stunned silence as the bus’s engine roared back to life and the vehicle resumed its journey.
2. His heart raced inside his chest, overwhelmed by the woman’s courageous and fearless actions. They had resonated louder than the hushed whispers that had previously filled the bus, even overpowering the sound of the humming motor.

Question 8

8. Eyes

Answer 8

1. As the bus driver cast a wary eye towards the back of the bus, almost like he was daring those remaining to try something like that again, the young observer looked at the window.
2. His reflection stared back at him, but now something had changed within those eyes of his. A spark of inspiration.
3. Eyes that no longer saw the world as black and white, but one with splotches of colour, revealed through that simple act of determination and resolve.
4. Eyes that now gleamed with inspiration and newfound hope.
5. All because of the courage of a woman who remained unbowed in the face of opposition, who showed up and let herself be seen.

Question 9

9. Decision

Answer 9

1. The boy had decided. The actions of that woman had fissured that statue of hardships, but now he wanted to help topple it over.
2. He didn’t want to suffer anymore, he wanted to see that statue fall and shatter to pieces as it hit the ground.
3. He had changed his mind. He wanted to protest. He wanted to see change.

Question 10

10. Parents

Answer 10

1. Upon telling this to his parents he was immediately met with angry suspicion.
2. “What’s gotten into you, junior?”, they had said, “told you not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
3. But he stood his ground. He knew that times were changing, and that they would get left behind if they didn’t change too.

Question 11

11. Rosa Parks

Answer 11

1. It wasn’t long before articles began appearing in newspapers about the woman’s silent protest.
2. The boy read these with interest. Rosa Parks. That was her name.
3. Her arrest had triggered a campaign called the ‘Civil Rights Movement’, as African-Americans began advocating for the abolishment of racial segregation and discrimination.
4. Already, there were discussions in the Supreme Court about ending segregated seating. Change was happening before his very eyes.
5. One day the boy had heard the sounds of a protest, walking in the streets of Montgomery near his house.
6. (New line) “We shall overcome! Power to the people!”

Question 12

12. Power

Answer 12

1. It was there, as he listened to the chanting voices, imagining the sea of determined faces, that he realised the power of Parks’ actions, and the profound change and revolutionary action that such an act of defiance had led to.
2. An act of defiance that had turned into a living and breathing movement, of people who refused to be crushed under the weight of prejudice and racialism.
3. An entire race of people, marching as one to speak out.
4. All working together to bring down the statue of oppression that they had lived in the shadow of for so long.

Question 13

13. Tired

Answer 13

1. He could wait no longer. He was tired. He was tired of having to live like this. Of his people having to live like this.
2. He ran, flinging open his front door, and began sprinting in the direction the chants were coming from. Louder and louder their voices grew.
3. (New line) “We shall overcome! Power to the people!”