This passage records the events of Rosa Parks, 1st December 1955, USA by Barnaby (7G)
I began walking to the bus to take me home. I hoped that the jacket I was repairing for Mr. Thomas was ok. I was getting on James Blake’s bus and was told to enter the bus through the back. I decided to obey him despite what I wanted to do. I boarded the bus and began to get quite anxious.
The sign, ‘Coloured’ reminded me of my fate that would be decided in a matter of minutes. It is sitting on the seat glaring back at me like the devil. The bus is very crowded, I am thinking. ‘Is this the time I will be forced to get off?’ Another white man walked in paying the fare and smiling at that ghastly James Blake. He is coming to an abrupt halt looking confused as to what to do now. There is no spare seat for him at the front.
James Blake rose from the driving seat. “Woman, You’re gonna ‘ave to give me your seat.”
“I don’t think I should have to”, I replied solemnly.
“I’m afraid I’m gonna ‘ave to arrest you”, exclaimed the horror of Blake. I remained sitting. I stared him in the eye. I remained silent and didn’t blink. “Get UP!”, he shouted louder than when my sewing machine broke. “NOW!!!!!” He called the police and grabbed me. He dragged me off the floor. All I wanted now, was the newspaper to report this and segregation on buses to be eliminated.
I was thrown violently into the police car. I glanced back into the bus and I see my friends watch on with horror. I was driven away and would have to await my trial. I just kept thinking, ‘I hope this makes a difference.’
This illegal action led to the bus boycott which took place from 5th December 1955 – 16th December 1956. Segregation on buses was outlawed in 1956. Rosa Parks won the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for her efforts and an asteroid in space was named after her. ‘284996 Rosa Parks.’
Afghanistan by Phoebe (7G)
Being the daughter of diplomats means my family and I need to move around a lot. I was actually born in Jordan and two years later we moved to the UK. I spent four years in the UK and in that time, my dad went to Iraq for another posting. My mum always said that we were so brave to spend such long periods of time without a dad but to be honest, I can hardly remember those times when he was in Iraq.
Soon after that posting, my mum got offered a job in America and this time we could go with her. By the time I was seven, I had been through two nurseries and two schools. In the last year of my mum’s job, my dad got offered another posting in Afghanistan. This time I was old enough to understand what was going on.
On my dad’s first rotation in Afghanistan, we were all a bit nervous and worried about him. It didn’t help when we woke up one morning, turned on the news and the main headline said ‘HUGE BOMB IN KABUL HOSPITAL, TALABAN DRESSED AS NURSES’ My sister Abby and I started to panic asking loads of questions like. ‘Is daddy ok? Can daddy come home? Why did the bad guys bomb a hospital? Who are the Talaban?’ My mum suddenly turned off the telly and told us that dad was ok and the bomb wasn’t close enough to harm him. Straight after she had told us this, I messaged my dad and rang him, but he didn’t pick up or answer my messages. That night he rang us and all my anxiety had suddenly been relieved of me.
In my dad’s last year of working in Afghanistan another huge bomb went off, but this time it was right outside the Embassy where my dad was. The Talaban had dressed up as some people from a water company but the truck wasn’t full of water, it was jam packed with suicide bombs. I had no idea of what was going on as my mum tried to hide the news of the bomb from us so we wouldn’t get as worked up as we were last time. Luckily no one from the Embassy was killed but all the windows were shattered, the ceiling had fallen through, walls had broken down, bedrooms were tipped upside down.
I have only recently been told this story and I’m glad that they told me now rather than at the time as I would have spiralled out of control.
