By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
Kathleen Cole who took part in children’s marches while growing up during the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama during the 1960’s thinks more now about the fight for freedom than ever.
Cole points to President Donald Trump’s executive orders since his Jan. 20 inauguration, aimed at rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs within the federal government.
Trump’s push to eliminate DEI from federal agencies through a series of executive orders saw the Air Force briefly removed training courses with videos of the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Air-force Service Pilots (WASPs). Following widespread outcry, those courses were returned.
“I’m 75 years old and I never could imagine that my 17-year-old granddaughter would have to deal with the type of prejudice that I had to deal with,” Cole said. “It’s as if you are reliving some of the things that you thought were behind us and they’re not.”
Taking place in May 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, The Children’s Crusade, also known as the Birmingham Children’s March, was a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement, which involved over a thousand African American school children.
Cole, just a 10th-grader at Ullman High School in Birmingham, was among the protesters.
“It was a really a normal day. We were all going to school but once we got to school it was like a buzz in the air. Everybody was going downtown. People asked, [are] you going to the march? staying at school? what are you going to do? I had an English teacher she told me and my friend Linda that we shouldn’t go because we would no longer have perfect attendance for the school year. That was important to the teacher. Why? We don’t know. We always talk about that now, why was it that she felt we needed to stay? but we left school and walked downtown,” Cole recalled.
On May 2, 1963, more than a thousand students skipped school to gather at the 16th Street Baptist Church, the march’s starting point. Despite their non-violent stance, the children were met with fierce opposition from the city’s authorities.
Cole recalls the feeling when she arrived downtown for the protest. “We had heard about what was happening before when you go downtown that they would turn the water hoses on you and you would get wet up. We were determined. We had our raincoats so we would get wet up. I remember thinking that is all that was going to happen.
That was not all that happened. The children were met with fire hoses and police dogs that were broadcast on national television, shocking viewers and eliciting widespread condemnation, exposing the harsh realities of segregation to the world, putting immense pressure on political leaders to act.
The children were arrested and taken to Fairgrounds in Five Points West. “It was a rude awakening for us because we didn’t expect that,” Cole said. “The Fairgrounds looked different when you were being housed for jail compared to you coming there for the State Fair. We were afraid, my friend Linda and I were together. It was dark, dingy, and scary. And we weren’t going home,” Cole said.
Cole said she was released the next day after being arrested.
“My father came and got me,” said Cole adding, “that was during a time where they worked it out because we were children. All of us that were 16 and under, it was expunged from our record. “
Lessons from then are still applicable today, said Cole.
“We have to be together. We have to understand that we are all in this together. Not one race, not one person, or one anything. It’s to be united. No matter what color your skin is.”
Pivotal dates during the 1963 Children’s Crusade
Wednesday, April 3
The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) lead sit-in demonstrations at downtown Birmingham lunch counters; twenty participants are arrested at Britt’s lunch counters, while Kress, Loveman’s, Pizitz, and Woolworth’s close their counters.
Friday, April 5
Ten sit-in demonstrators are arrested, including six at Lane Drugstore (First Avenue and 20th Street) and four at Tutwiler Drugstore (Fifth Avenue and 20th Street).
Saturday, April 6
The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth leads a march toward City Hall, beginning at the A. G. Gaston Motel; police halt the march at 18th Street and Fifth Avenue, arresting 32 participants.
Sunday April 7 (Palm Sunday)
The Rev. A. D. King, the Rev. Nelson Smith, and the Rev. John Porter lead a march beginning at St. Paul Methodist Church (Sixth Avenue and 15th Street); police dogs are used to disperse black onlookers.
Wednesday, April 10
Sit-ins are attempted, but lunch counters are closed; police arrest 27 protesters in the 400 block of 19th Street.
Thursday, April 11
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders receive a court-ordered injunction against “boycotting, trespassing, parading, picketing, sit-ins, kneel-ins, wade-ins, and inciting or encouraging such acts.”
Friday, April 12 (Good Friday)
Dr. King, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth lead a march in defiance of the injunction and are arrested within yards of the site of the Palm Sunday arrests. During his incarceration for this offense, Dr. King writes his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Sunday, April 14 (Easter)
Blacks attend worship services at predominantly white churches and are turned away from several other churches. Approximately 1,000 people attempt to march to City Hall but are stopped by police; 32 are arrested.
Wednesday, April 17
A local pastor and 15 Black women march from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to the Jefferson County Courthouse to register to vote; they are arrested in the 1600 block of Sixth Avenue.
Thursday, April 18
Demonstrators stage two sit-ins at lunch counters: one of the facilities is closed, and demonstrators are not served at the other.
Friday, April 19
11 protesters are arrested at the 2121 Building lunch counter.
Saturday, April 20
Seven picketers outside the Pizitz lunch counter are arrested. Seven protesters are arrested at a sit-in at Britt’s. Four people are arrested inside Atlantic Mills. And seven people are arrested inside at Tillman Levenson.
Sunday, April 21
15 Black worshippers attend white church services; others are turned away.
Monday, April 22
Sit-ins take place at the Woolworth’s, H. L. Green, and Britt’s lunch counters. Demonstrators are not served, and no arrests are made.
Wednesday, April 24 through Wednesday, May 1
Sporadic demonstrations take place. Protesters spend much of their energy in the courtroom, fighting the injunction and contempt-of-court charges. Mass meetings continue at various churches.
Thursday, May 2
Children demonstrate en masse against the Birmingham Police Department and Commissioner Bull Connor. Nearly 1,000 children are arrested, most in groups ranging in size from 30 to 60.
Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4
Demonstrations involving children continue. Connor responds with police dogs and water hoses, infuriating demonstrators and onlookers.
Sunday, May 5
A mass rally is held at the New Pilgrim Baptist Church (Sixth Avenue and 10th Street South). The rally culminates with a march to the Southside jail and a massive demonstration in Memorial Park across from the jail.
Monday, May 6
Several groups of children and adults that had assembled at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church are arrested.
Tuesday, May 7
Children continue to demonstrate. Shuttlesworth is hospitalized with injuries inflicted by high-powered water hoses on the steps on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Wednesday, May 8
Demonstrations are suspended. Movement leaders say white business leaders are acting in good faith to settle issues of concern.
Friday, May 10
Leaders of the demonstrations, represented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the white business community, represented by Sidney Smyer, reach an agreement including an end to demonstrations and a cooling-off period.
