Main Idea

[1] In the 1950s and 1960s, racial conflicts were a big problem in Birmingham, Alabama. A lot of people thought of it as the most racist city in America. Twenty-one bombs were set off at African American churches in the city between the years of1955 and 1963. People gave the city the nickname “Bombingham.” [2] Many civil rights leaders were trying to help fix the problems in Birmingham. One of those leaders was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The activists worked to plan protests and events. The people who went to the protests often got arrested. The police in Birmingham did not allow the protests to happen without trouble. [3] Civil rights leaders and community members went to the 16th Street Baptist Church to plan meetings. It became well known as a place where the activists met.

What are paragraphs 1-3 mostly about?

[10] The investigation of the crime was done poorly and took a long time. At first, the state of Alabama offered a $52,000 reward for the bomber’s arrest. Twenty-five FBI agents came to work on the case. Part of what made the investigation hard was the lack of evidence. A lot had been destroyed with the church. Finally the FBI discovered that the bombers were four members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their names were Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry. Shockingly, the FBI closed the case in 1968 without arresting the four men. [11] There was a new Attorney General in Alabama in 1971. He started looking in to the case again, digging up old evidence. His efforts helped convict the group’s leader. Robert Chambliss was sent to jail in 1977. [12] The FBI reopened the case in 2000. Herman Cash had died in 1994, but Bobby Cherry and Thomas Blanton, Jr. were convicted in 2002. Both received sentences of life imprisonment.

In paragraphs 10-12, the author describes the investigation and arrests of those involved with the bombing.

What detail do you feel is most important for understanding these paragraphs?  

[1] Wilma Rudolph crouched at the starting line, every muscle in her lean, 5-foot-11-inch body poised for the race. The starter gave the signal, and Wilma took off. Did this young woman from Tennessee have the strength and determination to win the Olympic gold medal? [2] Everything in Wilma’s life had prepared her for this moment. But Wilma wasn’t an ordinary athlete. “My life wasn’t like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports,” she said.

What is the main idea of this section?

[3] Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23, 1940. She weighed four and a half pounds. No one expected her to survive. “I was sick all of the time when I was growing up,”Wilma wrote in her autobiography, Wilma. [4] Wilma was the 20th of 22 children. In America in the 1940s, segregation kept black and white people from being treated the same. Because the Rudolphs were African American, only one doctor in their town would care for Wilma. Her mother helped by using home remedies to nurse Wilma through measles, mumps, chickenpox, scarlet fever, appendicitis, and double pneumonia. “I think I started acquiring a competitive spirit right then and there, a spirit that would make me successful in sports later on… I was going to beat these illnesses no matter what.” [5] Wilma fought her hardest childhood battle against polio, a disease that crippled her left leg. Mrs. Rudolph found a black medical college in Nashville, 50 miles away. Twice a week, for several years, Wilma and her mother took the bus to Nashville. At home, Wilma and her family massaged and exercised her weak leg to strengthen it. [6] After several months, the hospital fitted Wilma with a brace. “The brace went on… and I lived with that thing for the next half-dozen years… When I was six, I started treatments… that lasted until I was ten years old.”

Complete the sentence starter: In this section, I learned that the biggest obstacle Wilma Rudolph faced was…

[1] A wildfire rages along the border of Montana and Idaho. The fire burns hot. It leaves behind a charred landscape of dead, blackened pine, fir, and larch trees. It looks as if nothing will ever grow in this place again. Within days, however, some of the trees begin to sprout new needles. Shrubs and flowers push new growth up fromthe blackened earth. Then, a special animal shows up. It's a black-backed woodpecker, and it's been waiting for a fire just like this.

[2] Black-backed woodpeckers are medium-sized birds that live across Canada and in some parts of the northern and western United States. They look a lot like other woodpeckers, with long, sturdy beaks and black-and-white feathers. The males have yellow patches on their foreheads that replace the red markings on most other woodpecker species. [3] But one thing makes the black-backed woodpecker different from most other birds. This bird lives almost exclusively in forests that have been severely burned.What can it find to eat there?[4] Beetles.

What is the main idea of this section?