Children in the Civil Rights movement
Children played a significant role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, actively participating in various forms of protest and activism. These young individuals, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, took part in marches, sit-ins, boycotts, and voter registration campaigns, often joining their parents at organizing meetings held in Black churches. The involvement of children was particularly pronounced in Southern states such as Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, where systemic segregation was prevalent both legally and culturally. Despite the movement's commitment to nonviolence, children faced severe backlash, including violence from mobs, police brutality, and even lethal attacks, highlighting the grave dangers they encountered in their quest for equality.
One notable event was the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, in May 1963, where thousands of children marched for civil rights, only to be met with aggressive police tactics. The tragic bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in September 1963, which killed four young girls, underscored the perilous environment in which these young activists operated. Furthermore, children were central to the desegregation of public schools, enduring significant hostility and isolation as they sought equal educational opportunities. Landmark cases, such as Brown v. Board of Education and the integration of the Little Rock Nine, highlighted their crucial role in challenging racial segregation. Overall, children in the Civil Rights movement exemplified courage and resilience in the face of profound injustice.
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Children in the Civil Rights movement
Many African American children—from the very young to teenagers—were involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s in the United States. They participated in marches, demonstrations, boycotts, pickets, sit-ins, desegregation of schools, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides. Some children accompanied their activist parents to organizing meetings, which were often held in black churches and conducted by members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), and other civil rights organizations. The children were primarily involved in the movement in the South, especially Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida, where both de jure (by law) and de facto (by custom) segregation existed. Although the movement was nonviolent, it elicited violent acts from angry white mobs who gathered around protests, local authorities trying to break up demonstrations and arrest protesters, and racist groups who bombed churches and attacked African Americans in an effort to intimidate them. In the course of the struggle to obtain civil rights, African American children were beaten, clubbed, gassed, threatened by lynch mobs, attacked by police dogs, blasted by high-power water hoses, arrested, jailed, and even killed.
In May of 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of children marched for civil rights as part of the Children’s Crusade. Birmingham police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, a staunch segregationist, gave the order for police to attack the children with nightsticks, police dogs, and high-power water hoses. The police arrested the children, filling the city jails and then imprisoning children in a makeshift jail at the fairgrounds. In September, 1963, a bomb exploded in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four young girls who had been attending Sunday school. The church had been selected as a target because civil rights activists gathered there and organized protests.
Children also played an important, and difficult, role in school the desegregation of public schools. Their parents filed lawsuits on their behalf, but it was the children who attended these schools who bore the brunt of racially motivated attacks, verbal and physical abuse, and social isolation. Two of the nationally publicized cases occurred in Topeka, Kansas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. Topeka operated eighteen public elementary schools for white children only and four schools for black children. The Reverend Oliver Brown, filed a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter Linda Carol Brown, and twelve other black plaintiffs, on behalf of their children, to protest this segregation. After much expert testimony, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 issued a landmark decision that ended segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race because segregation deprived minority children of equal educational opportunities. In 1957, nine black youths (known as “the Little Rock Nine”), led by Daisy Bates, desegregated Little Rock’s Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to use state troopers to protect the children from physical violence by armed white adults opposed to desegregation.
Bibliography
Bynum, Thomas. NAACP Youth and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1936-1965. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 2013. Print.
Jeffrey, Gary. The Little Rock Nine and the Fight for Equal Education. New York: Gareth, 2013. Print.
Klein, Rebecca T. School Integration: Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka. New York: Rosen, 2015. Print.
Mayer, Robert H. When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. Berkeley Heights: Enslow, 2008. Print.