On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. Let's talk about the Children's March of nineteen sixty three, a historical moment that doesn't get nearly the recognition that deserves. And honestly, when I first heard about it, I thought, wait, kids did what cause, let's be real. When I was a kid, all the time, I did anything revolutionaries.
When I was taking Kurt Franklin, do you want a revolution? What's that? Do you want a revolution?
I didn't know.
Maybe you didn't.
I didn't know.
Maybe no, I didn't know. Maybe you did. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
But not these kids in Birmingham, Alabama. They weren't playing around Jack. There were nineteen sixty three and Birmingham was the most racist city in the country.
Segregation was everywhere.
Schools, buses, bathrooms, water fountains, And I'm thinking, how racist do you have to be to hate somebody at a water fountain?
You upset that they getting hydrated. It's silly.
And the adults have been protesting for months. But the CID he wasn't budgeting. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
And his crew.
They started quoting Jay z and said we need more people. That's when James Bevill said, I've got a plan. Let's get the kids involved.
Now.
I don't know what parents sat down with their ten year old and said, listen, pack of lunch, baby, cause you're going to fight Jim Crow today.
But they did it, and the kids they showed up.
Thousands of them left school and gathered at the sixteenth Street Baptist Church like it were recess. And instead of dodgeballs, they were like, hey, we're gonna dodge dogs, fire hoses and billy clubs today. Seriously, that's some next level courage right there. We're talking about kids.
Now.
Imagine being a racist police officer that day. You out here ready to fight, and then you see a group of twelve year olds chatting for freedom. What do you even do? Well, apparently, if you're racist Birmingham police in nineteen sixty three, you turned into cartoon villains. They brought out fire hoses, fire hoses to blast these kids off their feet, unleash the dogs on them kids like it was a twisted Last Year episode. Some of y'all don't
remember Lastie, But here's the thing. Them kids didn't stop. They got arrested by one hundreds, thrown in jail like it was a field trip to Alcatraz. And more kids just kept showing up day after day. They started putting on their swimsuits to prepare for the fire hoses. They marched, they sang, and they did not back down kids. And it worked because the news saw them pictures, kids getting hosed down and attacked by dogs, and the whole world
saw them pictures. You google Children's March of nineteen sixty three right now, and you can see them pictures. Suddenly, people just couldn't ignore the civil rights movement any longer. That Children's March of nineteen sixty three pushed momentum forward and led to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. That's right, a bunch of kids in pigtails, corn rows and penny loafers helped change the laws. Now, why we don't hear more about this? I think it's because the
dusts don't like being shown up by the kids. Don't nobody want to admit that a ten year old with a homemade sign had more guts than most of us do right now, But the lesson here is real. You ain't gotta wait till you're older, or richer, or more established to make an impact. These kids took risk because they believed in something bigger than themselves.
So next time you think what.
Can I really do to change things, just remember if a bunch of kids with no smartphones, no hashtags, no TikTok followers can bring down segregation, what's stopping us? Let's all channel a little bit of nineteen sixty three energy, shall we? Black folks? Black folks we channeling. We don't need no white folks channel in nineteen sixty three energy, because history don't just happen. It gets made, and sometimes it's made by people who ain't even old enough to drive.
And I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. No,