Practice Phrasing: “The Civil Rights Movement”

Phrasing is how you use your voice to group words together. Use this passage to practice reading with proper phrasing. Print a copy of this passage from InsideNG.com to help you monitor your progress.

In the South, segregation was enforced by Jim Crow laws. These laws had controlled the lives of Southern blacks since the late 1800s. Jim Crow laws said that blacks and whites must use different schools, restaurants, hotels, theaters, parks, sections of trains and buses, and so on. Even funeral homes and cemeteries were segregated! In the few places where blacks and whites shared public services—such as post offices and banks—African Americans had to wait for all whites to be served first.

In the North, segregation happened by practice and custom. Many African Americans moved to Northern cities during the 1940s, and whites responded by moving to the suburbs. African Americans found themselves trapped in city slums—poor neighborhoods where housing and schools were bad and where there were few jobs.