A great victory偉大勝利

儲存 When Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr saw the first bus coming down the street, they shouted with excitement. It was empty. It was the same all over Montgomery. Black people carpooled (共乘) or walked. The bus boycott was a huge success.Rosa Parks was convicted (被判有罪) and fined ten dollars. The conviction would be appealed (上訴). Maybe it would go all the way to the federal courts. Hopes were high that bus segregation could be ended and called unconstitutional. King and the other members of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) made some demands as conditions to end the boycott. Black drivers had to be hired where the riders were mostly African American. Seating on the bus had to be first come, first served ( 先到先得). Black passengers could not be forced to give up their seats to someone who boarded the bus later.Finally, many white bus drivers were treating their black passengers rudely. Black riders wanted to be treated with the same courtesy (以禮相待) that the whites enjoyed.Many white people in Montgomery blamed King for the bus boycott. The bus company was losing money. White businesses in town were losing their many black customers. Then, King was driving thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five miles per hour zone. The police stopped him.Instead of just giving him a ticket, the police threw him into jail. Many protested around the jail, and King was freed. But the harassment (騷擾) continued. Every day, hate mail came to the parsonage (牧師公寓). Coretta King was worried about the safety of their baby. She dreaded ( 懼怕) the ringing of the phone because so many of the calls were threats.King feared that violence might happen. He told his followers that they could not answer violence with violence ( 以暴制暴). A terrible thought went through King's mind. He realised that he might lose his family if angry whites attacked the house. He was so worried that he felt he could not go on as president of the MIA.He prayed for strength. Then, he felt as if a voice were telling him he had to stand up for justice no matter what.On 30 January 1956, King was at a church meeting when someone told him his house had been bombed. King rushed home to find his family unhurt. News of the bombing spread through the black community. A large, furious crowd gathered before King's damaged house.But King made a powerful sermon. He told them they had to love even the people who committed violence against them. Then, King led everybody in singing Amazing Grace. Violence had been averted (防止).The business people of Montgomery were losing a lot of money. So, they demanded action.The county Grand Jury indicted ( 起訴) Martin Luther King Jr and the other MIA members for running an illegal boycott. King was convicted,but his lawyers argued that the segregation of buses was illegal in the first place. On 4 June 1956, the federal court agreed. When the case went to the Supreme Court, bus segregation was outlawed ( 被宣告非法). The MIA won a great victory. (3 of 4)　送好書從文中找出符合"an actof refusing to buy or usesomething as a way ofprotesting" 定義的單詞，並以此單詞造句，連同你的姓名及地址， 電郵至english@mingpao.com，即有機會獲贈由商務印書館送出Biographies 系列《爭取民權Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks》，每期名額一個。上期得獎者︰讀者：Angel Chan句子：The government should act as an example by preventing segregation so as to maintain the harmony of society.資料提供︰商務印書館Biographies 系列mini storage