Latest / The Breakfast Club / IDKMYDE: Children's March of 1963

Transcript

IDKMYDE: Children's March of 1963 · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Children's March of nineteen sixty three,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a historical moment that doesn't get nearly the recognition that deserves.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And honestly, when I first heard about it, I thought, wait,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: kids did what cause, let's be real. When I was
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a kid, all the time, I did anything revolutionaries.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: When I was taking Kurt Franklin, do you want a revolution?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: What's that? Do you want a revolution?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe no, I didn't know. Maybe you did. I didn't know.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: But not these kids in Birmingham, Alabama. They weren't playing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: around Jack. There were nineteen sixty three and Birmingham was
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the most racist city in the country.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Segregation was everywhere.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Schools, buses, bathrooms, water fountains, And I'm thinking, how racist
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: do you have to be to hate somebody at a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: water fountain?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: You upset that they getting hydrated. It's silly.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And the adults have been protesting for months. But the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: CID he wasn't budgeting. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: And his crew.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: They started quoting Jay z and said we need more people.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: That's when James Bevill said, I've got a plan. Let's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: get the kids involved.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know what parents sat down with their ten
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: year old and said, listen, pack of lunch, baby, cause
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you're going to fight Jim Crow today.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: But they did it, and the kids they showed up.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Thousands of them left school and gathered at the sixteenth
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Street Baptist Church like it were recess. And instead of dodgeballs,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: they were like, hey, we're gonna dodge dogs, fire hoses
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and billy clubs today. Seriously, that's some next level courage
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: right there. We're talking about kids.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Imagine being a racist police officer that day. You out
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: here ready to fight, and then you see a group
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of twelve year olds chatting for freedom. What do you
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: even do? Well, apparently, if you're racist Birmingham police in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, you turned into cartoon villains. They brought
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: out fire hoses, fire hoses to blast these kids off
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: their feet, unleash the dogs on them kids like it
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: was a twisted Last Year episode. Some of y'all don't
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: remember Lastie, But here's the thing. Them kids didn't stop.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: They got arrested by one hundreds, thrown in jail like
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it was a field trip to Alcatraz. And more kids
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: just kept showing up day after day. They started putting
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: on their swimsuits to prepare for the fire hoses. They marched,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: they sang, and they did not back down kids. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it worked because the news saw them pictures, kids getting
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: hosed down and attacked by dogs, and the whole world
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: saw them pictures. You google Children's March of nineteen sixty
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: three right now, and you can see them pictures. Suddenly,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: people just couldn't ignore the civil rights movement any longer.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: That Children's March of nineteen sixty three pushed momentum forward
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and led to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: That's right, a bunch of kids in pigtails, corn rows
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and penny loafers helped change the laws. Now, why we
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: don't hear more about this? I think it's because the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: dusts don't like being shown up by the kids. Don't
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: nobody want to admit that a ten year old with
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a homemade sign had more guts than most of us
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: do right now, But the lesson here is real. You
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: ain't gotta wait till you're older, or richer, or more
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: established to make an impact. These kids took risk because
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: they believed in something bigger than themselves.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: So next time you think what.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Can I really do to change things, just remember if
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a bunch of kids with no smartphones, no hashtags, no
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: TikTok followers can bring down segregation, what's stopping us? Let's
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: all channel a little bit of nineteen sixty three energy,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: shall we? Black folks? Black folks we channeling. We don't
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: need no white folks channel in nineteen sixty three energy,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: because history don't just happen. It gets made, and sometimes
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: it's made by people who ain't even old enough to drive.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: And I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. No,