The Po Show

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Bus Boycott

Tessa had a poster report project for class, on a topic concerning a notable African American or American president. She chose Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She received this assignment as soon as she returned from being away due to vacation and illness, which was on Jan. 11. The project was due originally on Jan. 22, but the teacher gave them an extension and it was due today.

She finally started the project this week, on Monday evening. Part of the problem had been that she received a huge amount of make up homework (she missed two full weeks of school), including the winter break packet that all the kids had to do over vacation. She gets a sizable amount of homework nightly, so she slowly chipped away at the make up homework over two weeks. The other problem is that she knew she wanted to do her project on Martin Luther King, Jr., but kept changing her mind as to what form the project should take. Then she had to read (I'm not kidding) four books on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I kept telling her that I thought she had enough information, and that she didn't have to write all that much anyway, but she kept taking more books out of the library on MLK.

Finally she decided on doing a poster, and on the bus boycott. I was starting to go into full on nag mode at the end of last weekend, that she hadn't started yet, that it was due this week, that she had homework every night so she wouldn't have that much time, that she had a play date on Tuesday after school so that was going to cut into the available time, nag nag nag. She started doing a rough draft of the text on Tues., finished it on Wed., found pictures online (thank you Google Images!), typed out the text and printed it, and glued all the parts onto poster board last night.

I have to say, it was pretty damn good for an eight year old. I did not edit her text in any way (while I did have some suggestions for improving the content, I decided that the grammar and spelling was all perfect, so I would let it be her project).

The title was the same as that of this post. The text read:

"The bus boycott started on 1955, December 1st and was caused when Rosa Parks didn't give up her seat on the bus to a white man. The black people didn't ride the buses anywhere. On December 5th Martin went around the city looking to see how many black men and women were riding the bus. He only counted 8 blacks riding the bus. This was also the day Rosa Parks went to trial. Many blacks went to support her. As the boycott continued the Montgomery Improvement Association gave three demands to the bus company: the bus drivers must stop insulting black passengers; passengers should be seated on a first come, first served basis; and the bus company must hire some black drivers. But the company didn't agree to the changes. The bus boycott ended on December 20th, 1956."


She chose three pictures for the poster: MLK posed with Rosa Parks, a copy of the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper, with a story about the organization of the boycott and showing a handwritten flyer asking blacks not to ride the bus in the cause of justice (she was SO excited to find that picture!), and a picture of MLK speaking to the press after his release from jail after the bus protests.

Okay, so she could have explained in greater detail how MLK became a leader of the boycott, and how the publicity from the boycott propelled him to nationwide prominence as a civil rights leader, and the court cases that overturned the bus segregation that led to the end of the boycott, but hey, for a third grader, it was an awesome report, I thought :). I was a TA in grad school, and I swear I had seniors who could have learned some research and writing skills from my baby girl.