The Civil Rights Movement and the Incredible Role Taken by Young People

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“Better rise ‘n shine bright ‘n early because it’s D-Day Kids…” Was the slogan used by radio crews during the few short days of the legendary Children’s march. The civil rights movement was possibly the greatest, most critical moment in the history of The United States of America…no the single most important moment in the immense history of the world and quite possibly the most crucial second in human history itself. And at the center of it all was young, brave individuals. No these were not brave men and women untied to fight for themselves and their children. The ‘soldiers’ who fought this war of social equality were the youth of the nation; the very children of adults who could afford to risk messing with the way their world went, the adults who were too afraid to take a stand. In this essay the Children’s March, Freedom Rides, and one great leader for equality will be shown to prove that the children in the Civil Rights Movement are the very reason why it succeeded without them the movement would of perpetually failed. The Children’s March was a brutal moment in the movement, attack dogs and fire hoses all put to nonviolent children who marched the streets of Birmingham; ages from toddlers to high school students; their goal the same thing, freedom. They often would be arrested; sent to jail houses in buses and realized at random. Not to mention the legendary ‘Bombingham’ was known for the KKK [Kou Klux Klan] radicals and extreme violence towards the African American populations and any ‘N**** Lovers’, churches were bombed, murders were frequent, and the perpetrators never brought to justice. (The Children’s March) If it was not for the kids willing to go to jail, willing to go through those difficulties and injustices the... ... middle of paper ... ...stood; too fearful of the law and KKK renegades and of losing their houses…cars…jobs. But then almost every child stood… In a world of the old it seemed only the youth would bring in the new in a new found sense of irony. The Children’s March, Freedom Rides, and even a young man Martin Luther King Jr. all driven by the youth of a nation. A failing Civil Rights Movement would of never have risen to succeed if it was not for them; the youth, the young, those who had nothing to lose but everything to fight for. Without those young children then the movement would have failed and the United States lost ion perpetual, unjust, cruel state of untrue ‘Separate but equal’. Works Cited A Time for Justice. Dir. Charles Guggenheim. Teaching Tolerance, 1995. Film. The Children’s March. Dir. Robert Hudson and Bobby Houston. Tell the Truth Pictures, 2005. Film.

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