,
13 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
1. If you don't like the Sunrise Movement or don't believe we need a moon shot mentality about climate, OK. But if you don't think that children protesting can change the world for good, then it's time for a quick history lesson. Come with me back to 1963.
2. Dr. Martin Luther King was fighting for civil rights in the Deep South, and his place in history was not yet guaranteed. His Albany, Ga., campaign had fizzled, and his new campaign to end segregation in Birmingham did not start off well. 
3. Birmingham was a scary place in 1963, nicknamed "Bombingham." Many black adults wanted integration but didn't want the risk - to their job, maybe their health - of marching with Dr. King. The early marches lacked big crowds, sparked little conflict, and received scant coverage
4. James Bevil, a civil rights icon and veteran of the lunch counter sit-its, had an idea for saving the Birmingham campaign: Going into the schools. Bevil organized high school and even younger kids and taught them non-violence. Read one flyer: "It's up to you to free our...
5. ...teachers, our parents, yourself and our country." When the appointed day - May 2, 1963 - came, one of the protest leaders was Gwendolyn Sanders, a 7th grader!! Other kids poured out of Parker High School to march. Some 600 students were arrested that day. The youngest was 8
6. They called it "The Children's Crusade." The arrests overwhelmed Birmingham's jails. "I have been inspired and moved by today," King said. "I have never seen anything like it." The protests made the front pages of the NY Times and Washington Post. nmaahc.si.edu/blog/childrens…
7. The next day. with the jails too overcrowded for new arrests, Birmingham's notorious public safety commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner tried to stop marchers with fire houses and attacks from police dogs. The violent images shocked the world.
8. One of the most famous pictures shows two police dogs attacking a marcher in the streets. The protester is Walter Gadsden. He was only a senior in Parker High School at the time. Bill Hudson's shot appeared in the NYT and galvanized support for the civil rights movement.
9. Under pressure from public opinion and federal officials, Birmingham soon largely agreed to the integration and hiring demands of King and the marchers. The next year, King won the Nobel Peace Prize -- but it might not have happened without the courage of these teenagers.
10. I'm seeing a lot of folks here in 2019 who apparently would say, what do schoolchildren know about complicated issues like segregation? Or, protest marches are only for adults! Or, shame on James Bevil and Martin Luther King for using those kids as pawns.
11. History views it differently. King, Bevil and the thousands of kids who protested in Birmingham are hailed today as American heroes. Had children not come forward in 1963, the segregation fight could have lasted for years and grown more violent.
12. The kids of Birmingham took action because they didn't want to grow into a world of racism and limited opportunity that inert adults were too fearful to fix themselves. It's exactly how the young people of the 21st Century are starting to feel about climate change.
13. I think some day people will look back on the kids marching, striking and protesting climate change as heroes - just like the children of civil rights. But just like in 1963, the grown-ups have to ultimately have their back. It's their planet to inherit, if we let them -30-
