Lesson Y9-U01-L03

Y9-U01-L03 Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 14

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y9-U01-L03, Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 14: Year 9: Civil Rights, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. In which city and year did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat?

    • Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957
    • Atlanta, Georgia, in 1956
    • Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955
    • Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963

  2. What was Rosa Parks's job at the time of her arrest, and which group was she secretary of?

    • A shopkeeper, and secretary of the Montgomery city council
    • A teacher, and secretary of the Montgomery bus company
    • A nurse, and secretary of the Women's Political Council
    • A seamstress, and secretary of the Montgomery NAACP

  3. Why did activist leaders build the campaign around Rosa Parks rather than Claudette Colvin?

    • Parks was a respectable adult, while leaders feared a teenager would be discredited
    • Colvin had already moved to another city and could not take part in the protest
    • Colvin had refused to work with the NAACP at any point during the whole boycott campaign
    • Colvin had given up her seat willingly earlier that same year, so she was never arrested at all

  4. What did the bus driver, James Blake, do on 1 December 1955?

    • He ordered four black passengers to give up their seats for white passengers
    • He told every passenger to leave the bus and walk to the city centre through the heavy rain
    • He refused to drive the bus until Parks left it and walked to the police station
    • He called the police to escort the white passengers off the bus and onto other routes

  5. What did the activists do overnight after Rosa Parks was arrested?

    • They ran a petition to change the city's bus routes
    • They printed about 35,000 leaflets calling for a bus boycott
    • They booked a train to carry Parks out of Montgomery
    • They sent a letter to the President asking for federal troops

  6. When was the first one-day bus boycott held in Montgomery?

    • Monday 20 December 1956
    • Monday 5 December 1955
    • Thursday 1 December 1955
    • Thursday 2 March 1955

  7. What was the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) formed to do?

    • Run the bus boycott and give it an organised voice
    • Register Black voters across the whole state of Alabama before the next election
    • Persuade the bus company to sell all of its buses to a new Black-owned company
    • Build new bus routes across Montgomery for the Black neighbourhoods of the city

  8. How old was Martin Luther King Jr when he was chosen to lead the MIA?

    • 42
    • 15
    • 26
    • 35

  9. Why did the boycott hurt the bus company so badly?

    • The boycott made it illegal for the company to sell tickets to anyone at all
    • The boycott stopped all traffic in the city centre for a whole year and more
    • Black riders were about 75% of passengers, so most fares were lost
    • The boycott forced the company to pay fines to every Black family in the town

  10. How did Black residents get to work during the boycott?

    • Buses driven by volunteers from the white community
    • Walking, car pools and Black-owned taxis
    • Trains that the city ran especially for them
    • Paid bus passes issued by the bus company

  11. How did Martin Luther King Jr respond when his home was bombed during the boycott?

    • He ordered supporters to attack the police station that had arrested protesters
    • He urged restraint and non-violence, and calmed the angry crowd
    • He left Montgomery and never returned to the city after the bombing of his home
    • He demanded that the bus company pay for all of the damage caused to his house

  12. On what date did the US Supreme Court rule that bus segregation was unconstitutional?

    • 5 December 1955
    • 1 December 1955
    • 13 November 1956
    • 20 December 1956

  13. Which court case, linked to the boycott, challenged bus segregation in Alabama?

    • Brown v. Board of Education
    • Dred Scott v. Sandford
    • Browder v. Gayle
    • Plessy v. Ferguson

  14. When did the boycott end, once the court order reached Montgomery?

    • 21 December 1955
    • 13 November 1956
    • 20 December 1956
    • 1 December 1955

  15. What does Source A (Rosa Parks's autobiography) say about why she refused to move?

    • She was tired of giving in, not physically tired
    • She refused because the driver had insulted her in front of the other passengers that day
    • She refused because the police had told her beforehand that she was allowed to sit there
    • She refused because she was late for an important meeting at her office downtown that afternoon

  16. Why is Source B, the city official's comment, useful to a historian?

    • It provides an accurate account of the bus routes and timetables used in Montgomery in 1955
    • It proves that the whole boycott was started by white civil rights activists from the North
    • It gives the exact number of passengers who used the buses each day across the whole year
    • It shows white officials' attitudes and their excuses, like blaming outsiders

  17. What does Source C, Jo Ann Robinson's memoir, show about the boycott?

    • That the Supreme Court ordered the boycott to begin
    • That the boycott began as a spontaneous riot by angry passengers
    • That the bus company had planned the boycott in advance
    • That the protest had been planned before Parks was arrested

  18. Why did non-violent protest help the boycott win public sympathy?

    • It meant the protesters never faced arrest or police action at all during the boycott
    • It forced the state government to sign a formal treaty with the leaders of the MIA
    • It stopped the bus company from raising its fares at all during the whole year
    • It denied authorities an excuse for force and won Northern and media support

  19. Why was the Supreme Court ruling, rather than the boycott alone, the direct legal cause of ending bus segregation?

    • The federal government passed the 13th Amendment to end bus segregation in 1956
    • The court ruling changed the law; the boycott built the pressure for it
    • The bus company voluntarily ended segregation after the first day of the boycott
    • The boycott passed a new state law that banned segregated buses across Alabama

  20. For how many days did the Montgomery bus boycott last?

    • 1,000 days
    • 381 days
    • 75 days
    • 42 days

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