VOA慢速英语2010-IN THE NEWS - Height, Hooks: The Passing

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

In recent days, Americans have lost two civil rights leaders of the twentieth century, Dorothy Height and Benjamin Hooks.

Dorothy Height died Tuesday at the age of ninety-eight. She witnessed more civil rights history than any other African-American leader of her time. She said the greatest change she witnessed was the ending of racial segregation¹ laws in the United States.

She was the longtime chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women. She was an activist², humanitarian³ and adviser⁴ to presidents including Barack Obama. He remembered her as "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement."

Dorothy Height grew up in Pennsylvania. She won a four-year college scholarship, the top prize nationally in a public speaking contest on the Constitution.

She arrived at school in New York City -- only to learn that an unwritten limit of "two Negro students per year" had already been met.

DOROTHY HEIGHT: "I was accepted at Barnard College and I was denied admission when I arrived because they had a quota⁵ of two. And they did not know that I was not white. And so when I got there I was turned away."

Dorothy Height, right, during Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington on August 28, 1963

Dorothy Height went on to earn bachelor and master's degrees in four years at New York University. She worked with Martin Luther King Junior in the push for civil rights for blacks in the nineteen fifties and sixties.

Yet she had to push to make herself heard as a woman among mostly male civil rights leaders. She was the only woman standing⁶ nearby as Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.

Dorothy Height received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal for her work for racial and gender⁷ equality.

Benjamin Hooks died last week at the age of eighty-five. He was a clergyman, lawyer and former head of the NAACP -- the National Association for the Advancement⁸ of Colored People. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in two thousand seven.

Benjamin Hooks receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush

Benjamin Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee, at a time when the southern city discriminated⁹ against blacks in all areas of public life.

He enrolled¹⁰ in college but was drafted into the Army and served in Italy during World War Two. During training, he and other blacks were kept apart from the whites they trained with.

BENJAMIN HOOKS: "So when I came out of the Army, I had already decided¹¹ I wanted to be part of breaking down segregation. Because I felt it had to be broken down. I felt it would be broken. So I consciously devoted¹² my life to that."

But because of his color no law school in Tennessee would admit him. So Benjamin Hooks enrolled at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, where he earned a law degree in nineteen forty-eight.

Soon after that, he returned to Memphis to work with the NAACP. During the nineteen fifties, he helped organize non-violent sit-in protests and boycotts¹³ of segregated¹⁴ white businesses.

He and Martin Luther King both wanted to create social change through a combination of moral persuasion¹⁵ and legislation. Martin Luther King spoke¹⁶ about changing white people's hearts and changing the laws. But Benjamin Hooks placed more importance on legal activism. He served as the director of the NAACP for fifteen years.

And that’s IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. You can read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
 

1 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

2 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

3 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

4 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

5 quota   

n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额

参考例句：

• A restricted import quota was set for meat products.肉类产品设定了进口配额。
• He overfulfilled his production quota for two months running.他一连两个月超额完成生产指标。

6 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

7 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

8 advancement   

n.前进，促进，提升

参考例句：

• His new contribution to the advancement of physiology was well appreciated.他对生理学发展的新贡献获得高度赞赏。
• The aim of a university should be the advancement of learning.大学的目标应是促进学术。

9 discriminated   

分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待

参考例句：

• His great size discriminated him from his followers. 他的宽广身材使他不同于他的部下。
• Should be a person that has second liver virus discriminated against? 一个患有乙肝病毒的人是不是就应该被人歧视？

10 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

13 boycotts   

（对某事物的）抵制( boycott的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their methods included boycotts and court action, supplemented by'sit-ins". 他们的主要方法包括联合抵制、法庭起诉，还附带进行静坐抗议。
• Are boycotts for other purposes illegal? 至于用于其它目的的联合抵制行动是否也是非法的呢？

14 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

15 persuasion   

n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派

参考例句：

• He decided to leave only after much persuasion.经过多方劝说，他才决定离开。
• After a lot of persuasion,she agreed to go.经过多次劝说后，她同意去了。

16 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。