[Music] the Children's Crusade in 1963 was the use of schoolage children primarily to participate in nonviolent demonstrations in downtown Birmingham we were told in some of the mass meetings that a day would come when we could really do something about all of these inequities that we were experiencing and we will call it dday and that was May 2nd 1963 on a Monday morning a young lady came out to visit our school to recruit people to come downtown and she said I'm hoping you can motivate our kids to come and go to jail some people their parents might have known what they were doing there a lot of folks who you know people had no idea my mother knew about it and she told me not to March don't leave the school school ground but I did anyway droves of us left school and walked to 16th Street we saw the kids coming into the 16th Street Baptist Church and we were elated they made it they made it we sang some freedom songs we said some prayers they reminded us this was a nonviolent movement and with those instructions we were lined up in pairs walk down those steps singing We Shall Overcome [Music] lo and behold coming off of the steps at the 16th Street Baptist Church there were 25 to 40 50 sheriffs across the road with these little batons in their hands at the ready first we were faced with the dogs and the water Hol kids are sprayed with fire hoses they kick out 100 100 lb of pressure that tore clothes that tore flesh the police officer stopped us and uh speaking through a megaphone said get out of this line or you going to jail I was so intimidated by facing a white man i' never had that encounter we were put in a sail block I understand hold 650 people and this cell block had over 1,500 people in it but there was so many people there we were just standing around shoulder toos shoulder more and more people were being arrested and they called for school buses to come for us and this time we were carried to the state Fairground we got excited driving into the state Fairground because blacks weren't allowed to go to the State Fair except on Saturday night after 10:00 and here we are in Fair Park and it's about to rain it was a ferocious thunderstorm that day and I can recall sever of the girls said that God don't even want on [Music] [Music] us I think we were the pivotal point that caused some changes uh to take place in society I think the nation was so outraged by how children were being treated in a nonviolent movement until it touched the hearts of people who otherwise might not have noticed what was going on it's not about having gone to jail how long I stayed and what we went through that day going to jail it's about our kids and our kids need to know the story without those young people making the sacrifice that they made you know the tide wouldn't have been turned you know it it just it was meant to be and those young people made change that has lasted uh ever since