The Children's Crusade and the Role of Youth in the African American Freedom Struggle

Abstract

As a high school senior, I have sat through many history classes and have acquired firsthand experience about the kinds of lessons that engage students in a meaningful way. For me, an ideal lesson plan is one that goes beyond the classroom, inspiring students to develop their social consciences and to work for social change. The following lesson plan focuses on the role young people played in the African American freedom struggle, specifically the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to examining that Crusade, we have included several stories of events that highlight the critical contributions young people made to the civil rights movement. Young people played an essential role in the African American freedom struggle, participating in many of the major campaigns of the civil rights movement as well as initiating personal protests against racial injustice. From Barbara Johns leading a strike of her fellow students at Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, in 1951 to protest the inequities between black and white education, to the children of Birmingham who were arrested en masse as they dissented against the city's segregation policies, the contributions of young people were critical to the movement's success.