Prime Time 5, Coursebook mit Audio-CD

Text: Heroes 1 Reading: The power of pictures a) Before you read, look at the photo which has become a symbol of the American Civil Rights Movement. • What emotions can you see on the faces in the photo? • What do you think could have caused them? • Why do you think this picture has become so well-known? b) Now read the text and find out more about the background of this picture. 17 FACT FILE Civil Rights Movement • Social movement in the 1950s and 1960s (USA) • Goals: equal opportunities for all American citizens (including African Americans, whites, …) • Prominent figures: Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr. 2 Internet project: “The mean girl” Find out about Hazel Massery, “the mean girl” as she has been called, who is screaming at Elizabeth Eckford. How did the famous photo change Hazel’s life? Write a short report about her life for a school magazine. Consider the following points: • her family background • her attitude towards African Americans when she was a student • how she changed her attitudes in her later life Elizabeth Eckford was 15 when this photo was taken of her trying to get into Little Rock’s Central High School in September 1957. She and eight other black students that year were the first to integrate an all-white school in Arkansas after the US Supreme Court had decided in 1954 that racial segregation was illegal. On the day of her famous walk to school, Elizabeth, like the other eight black students who wanted the chance to attend their city’s best high school, showed great courage. Anyone who saw the black students start their famous walk towards the angry mob would have smelled trouble. “For a moment all I could hear was the shuffling of their feet,” Elizabeth remembers. “Then someone shouted, ‘Here she comes, get ready!’. The mob came closer and began to follow me, calling me names. I still wasn’t afraid. Just a little bit nervous. Then suddenly my knees started to shake and I wondered whether I could make it to the center entrance a block away.” She tried different entrances, but nobody let her pass. Elizabeth didn’t know where to go. She finally found a bench at a bus stop and sat there in shock. Weeks later, the US government – with the help of the army – finally made Central High accept integration. The “Little Rock Nine” could now attend school. But it was not easy to get through each day that first year. Josh McHughes, a white student at Central, remembers how Elizabeth’s “terrified look never went away, from the first day to the last day of that year. She would have no reason to remember me. I was just another white face. She just wanted to get down the hall and get away fromme.” Now, it is easier for Elizabeth to talk to students about her experiences. Those talks have made her stronger, she says. She advises students to get the best education they can and not to be silent observers of any kind of racism and bullying. (From america.gov, Sept. 2007; adapted) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 95 7 Human rights Nur z Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv