https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JRG2Poi_Vkb7RlSSnB3atGEdIArlD88rPyrd91AKLQg/edit?usp=sharing

          On May 2, 1963, over 4,000 African American children meet at 16th Street Baptist Church to march for justice. The African American children wanted to be able to do all of the things that the white children were allowed to do, swim in public swimming pools, go to nice restaurants, drink out of nice drinking fountains, and be able to associate with people of the white race. For this reason, the children joined the children’s march to march for justice and equality for all.

          On May 2, 1963, the 4,000 children marched out of the church 2 by 2 singing freedom song with one of their goals is to go and talk to the mayor of Birmingham about the segregation. The children were not meet peacefully by Bull Connor (the commissioner of public safety in Birmingham) and his men. If they were not jailed by Bull Connor and his men they would return to the church and march again. On the first day of the children’s march, almost 1,000 children were jailed.

          On the following day, May 3, 1963, or Double D-Day the some of the kids that had not been jailed returned to the church bringing their friends with them. Thousands and thousands of kids poured into the church preparing to march for justice. This time Bull Connor was ready, he was not going to let anything like the day before happen again. Bull Connor had brought with him trained police dogs and high-speed water hoses. Even though the kids knew that their safety was being threatened they knew that they needed to march for their rights and the rights of their families. Parents did not want their kids to go and march but some of the kids were so determined that their parents the only option was to let their kids go and march. One boy told his dad that “Daddy, I don’t want to disobey you, but I have made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve to be punished for that, I’ll just have to take the punishment. I’m not doing this only because I want to be free. I’m also doing it because I want freedom for you and Mama, and I want it to come before you die.”

          When the kids started to march out of 16th Street Baptist Church, Bull Connor immediately set his dogs to work. They ripped the kid’s clothes and tore the kid’s skin, then Bull Connor put the children in school buses and sent them to the pig pens in the fairgrounds since the jails were over their legal capacity. After a while, Bull Connor realized that there were more Children than dogs so he put his firemen and their hoses to work. The hoses were so powerful that they needed at least 4 firemen to hold, control and spray the children with the hoses. The powerful blasts of water would knock any sized kid off his or her feet. Do deal with the water the kids just sat down with their backs to the spays and kept singing their freedom songs. Because of Bull Connor and his men’s violence and the children’s peaceful march, Bull Connor was framed for doing violent things and sending so many children to jail.

          The story of the children’s march is a sad story. It is sad that there was so much wrong in the world and people felt like they needed to solve the wrong and make things their way with violence. The children were marching for justice, marching to right the wrong in their world and their lives. Justice is when the kids were allowed to go to the same school as kids of the other race when they were allowed to swim in the same pools and drink from the same drinking fountains. Something has been healed since the time of the civil rights movement, others have not. We need to seek justice in everything including things that we might think have already been healed. We need to see thing from both sides so we can do what is right in everything.

          Learning about the children’s march, the peace from the African American children and the violence from the white adults leads me to believe that we need to see things from both sides before we stand up for what we think is right. What Bull Connor did was not right but he grew up knowing and learning that African Americans were bad. If he would have paused and thought about the lives of the African Americans in Birmingham his opinions might have changed and history might have played out a little different, a little better.

          In knowing what people did wrong we can try to do right, like thinking about both sides of the argument before acting or speaking. Once we know what is right we need to act on it, to help make the world a better place just like that boy did in 1963, “Daddy, I don’t want to disobey you, but I have made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve to be punished for that, I’ll just have to take the punishment. I’m not doing this only because I want to be free. I’m also doing it because I want freedom for you and Mama, and I want it to come before you die.”