Traveling English

In “Traveling,” what happens when the bus stops in Washington?

• A Jewish boy knocks down a black man.

• Passengers argue over seats near the front of the bus.

• Black people who are seated at the front move to the back of the bus.

• The narrator moves to the back of the bus to protest segregation.

Why does the bus driver in “Traveling” tell the narrator’s mother and sister to move?

• They are supposed to be sitting in the back part of the bus.

• They are sitting in the part of the bus reserved for black people.

• They are occupying a seat needed by a black woman carrying a baby.

• They are supposed to give up a seat to a white man who is standing.

What happens when the narrator in “Traveling” offers her seat to a young black woman who is holding a baby?

• The woman turns down the seat but lets the narrator hold her baby.

• The woman is too proud to accept the seat offered by the narrator.

• The woman accepts the seat, but a white man makes her get back up.

• The woman gladly accepts and sits in the seat with her baby.

Part A What is one of the most important messages of “Traveling”?

• Children are born innocent, and it is innocence that saves them.

• It takes courage to stand against prejudice, but it is the right thing to do.

• Even though we think there has been progress, society has failed to end segregation.

• No matter how close children and mothers are, there are stories that mothers never tell.

Part B Which lines from the essay best support the answer to Part A?

• My excitement about travel in the wide world was damaged a little by a sudden fear that I might not recognize Jess or he, me. We hadn’t seen each other for two months.

• Lady, I wouldn’t of touched that thing with a meat hook. . . . I could do nothing but look straight into his eyes. . . . Then I held that boy a little tighter, kissed his curly head, pressed him even closer.

• . . the thick little body of a child who runs wildly from one end of the yard to the other, leaps from dangerous heights with certain experienced caution, muscling his body, his mind, for coming realities.

• First I was angry. How come you never told me about your bus ride with Mama? . . . I don’t know, she said. . . .

Read these lines from “Traveling.”

He had a classmate, a Jewish boy like himself, but from Virginia, who had had a public confrontation with a Negro man. He had punched that man hard, knocked him down. My brother couldn’t believe it. He was stunned. He couldn’t imagine a Jewish boy wanting to knock anyone down. He had never wanted to.

Why does the narrator tell this story about her brother’s experience at the college?

• to show how innocent her brother was at that time

• to show how widespread prejudice was in the South

• to show that even Jewish boys could be violent if provoked

• to show that fighting was more common in Virginia than in New York

Part A In “Traveling,” the narrator and her mother both refuse to participate in prejudice against people of other races. How does the narrator’s daughter show that she also sees people of other races as equals?

• She has a child with an African American man.

• She attends school at South Medical College of Virginia.

• She refuses to move to the whites-only section of the bus.

• She tells the white man he should give his seat to the sleeping child.

Part B Which lines from the essay best support your response to Part A?

• My mother had heard that something like this would happen. My sister had heard of it, too. They had not lived in it. This reorganization of passengers by color happened in silence.

• So, to my surprise, but obviously out of sheer exhaustion, she disengaged the child from her body and placed him on my lap.

• I look back at that mother and child. How young she is. Her hand on his head . . . her fingers wide to hide him from the white man.

• But the child I’m holding, his little face as he turns toward me, is the brown face of my own grandson, my daughter’s boy. . . .

Part A Which words best describe the narrator of “Traveling”?

• cautious and hesitant

• brave and unwavering

• angry and hot-tempered

• humorous and quick thinking

Part B Which line from the selection best supports the answer to Part A?

• When I first tried to write this scene, I imagined my mother saying, That’s all right, mister, we’re comfortable.

• He stirred, but not enough to bother himself or me. I liked holding him, aligning him along my twenty-year-old young woman’s shape.

• So, to my surprise, but obviously out of sheer exhaustion, she disengaged the child from her body and placed him on my lap.

• I could do nothing but look straight into his eyes. I did not look away from him.