October 17, 2025 • 14 mins
For Shop Talk, when An Army of Normal Teenage Protestors inspired the adults to get back into the game. The little known story of The Children's Crusade!
Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premium
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Everybody. Welcome to shop. Talk number seventy three, Welcome in
the shop.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We decided to do a week this time.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It's a week.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's a week bell it's rainy out, so sad today,
it's just kind of yeah, it's just kind of a
chill day.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm well, Actually a cool story. Okay, actually a couple
of cool stories. I don't know why I'm going here.
You should stop asking me that question. Then I got
to come up with like random things to say out
at the top of my head.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Well, you have two apparently, Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So there was like a dreamer.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
This was a tornado at like end of March this year,
early April, and it completely destroyed a bunch of places
in Mississippi, including this Bowl Bottom Farms.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's like cool pumpkin patch. So anyway, they completely.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Rebuilt it, and I helped them one of the days,
so they're now fully built back up, and took the
kids there on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I don't know if that's a good enough story
worth keeping in here.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
But and then we had a sure talk out. We
had a church pickleball with like one hundred people on
Saturday night, pickleball. Yeah, pickleball and potluck with one hundred people.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Actually that sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It is fun.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I you know, I'd like to play pickleball with you.
You're playing tennis forever.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, never once played pickleball, but everybody says that it's
a blast.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It's it's tennis, but ping pong or something.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
You just kind of think it's for commoners. Like, I'm
not dealing with this. It's just not.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Just having that time to mess with it because I've
been roped into doing this.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Podcast and coaching middle college.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And coaching high school and running a business and redoing
our house and I'm losing my mind. So that's it,
all right, Shop Talk number thirty three.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I think your body's caught up on us.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
For three seventy three. You said thirty three.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Seventy three, Yeah, Shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So the Children's Crusade when the Youth of Birmingham marchs
for justice. It's from the History Channel and Alex says,
this is uh thought provoking stuff. So we're going to
talk about the Children's Crusade when the Youth of Birmingham
March for justice on Shop Talk number seventy three. Right,
(02:06):
after these brief messages from our general sponsors, everybody, welcome
back to the shop Shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
We have discussed pickleball. It's very important today.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Fastest grounds born in America.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Apparently I need to play.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I want to play, you know, just at a time
because of this podcast. So the Children's Crusade, when the
youth of Birmingham marched for justice from the History Channel.
Toward the end of April nineteen sixty three, doctor Martin
Luther King Junior and fellow leaders in the civil rights
movement faced a grim reality in Birmingham. With the menished
(03:01):
support and fewer volunteers, their campaigned to end segregationist policies
were teetering on failure. That's interesting. I didn't even know that.
I't either, But when an orthodox plan to recruit black
children to march was implemented, the movement reversed itself, reinvigorating
(03:21):
the fight for racial equality and what become name as
the Children's Crusade. King had traveled to Birmingham in the
spring of nineteen sixty three along with Southern Christian Leadership
Conference co founder Reverend Ralph Abernathy, hoping to shore up
resistance against segregation and state Their partnered with the Alabama
(03:43):
Christian Movement for Human Rights, a local civil rights organization
led by Fred Shuttlesworth, a prominent minister and activist, But
the Alabama movement was fresh off a failed attempt to
end segregation in Albany, Georgia. Overall, fewer people were attending meeting,
sit ins, and marches. After King was arrested and confined
(04:04):
to a jail cell, where he wrote his famous work
Letter from a Birmingham jail, he knew, along with other
activists that a new strategy was essential if the campaign
were to succeed. The number of adults who were willing
to volunteer to get arrested had steadily dwindled those last
two weeks of April, and it looked like the movement
was about to fall apart, says Glenn Escue, a history
(04:28):
professor at Georgia State University and the author of the
nineteen ninety seven book. But for Birmingham, the local and
national movement in the civil rights struggle, you know, I
guess that makes sense. I mean, who wants to volunteer
to go get arrested, which is basically what they were
asking folks to.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Do yeah, and then have no income and you're screwed.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And possibly also in Alabama, these folks probably also getting
to beat to death to James Bevell, a member of
the SCLC, came up with an idea to include school
aged children in protests to help desegregate Birmingham. The strategy
involved recruiting popular teenagers from black high schools, such as
the quarterbacks and cheerleaders, who could influence their classmates to
(05:12):
attend meetings with them at black churches in Birmingham to
learn more about the non violent movement. There was also
an economic reason to have children participate, since adults risks
being fired from their jobs for missing work and protesting.
Janice Kelsey was fifteen which she attended a first meeting
for the children's Crusade. I knew what segregation was in separation,
(05:35):
but I didn't understand the extent or the level of
the inequities in that separation, recalls Kelsey, a Birmingham nave
who wrote about her experience in the movement in twenty
seventeen memoir I woke up with my mind on freedom.
Bebell post questions the students who discovered that hand me
down books and football helmets were not what white students used,
(05:58):
nor was there just one typewriter in the entire school
like black students side, but rooms with typewriters at the
white schools, said Kelsey. Things like that became personal to me,
and I decided I wanted to do something about it. King,
along with other activists and members in the black community,
were adamantly opposed to involving children in marches because of
(06:20):
the threats to violence from white mobs as well as
from policemen led by bull Connor. Eugene bull Connor, the
Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, notorious for his racist policies. Bevell, undeterred,
told the children to gather at sixteenth Street Baptist Church
on May second, nineteen sixty three. More than one thousand
(06:41):
students skip school to participate in the protest. The youth,
arranging ages seven to eighteen, held picket signs and marched
in groups of ten to fifty, singing freedom songs. We
were told what to expect, says Kelsey. We even saw
some film strips of people who had sat at lunch
counters and were spit on and pushed and all that.
(07:02):
We were told that if you decide to participate, that
this is a non violent movement, so you can't fight back.
The demonstrators had several destinations. Some went to city Hall,
others went to lunch counters or downtown shopping district. They
marched daily for almost a week. It was well thought out,
says Vicki Crawford, the director of Morehouse College Martin Luther
(07:24):
King Junior Collection. It was not just a bunch of
people calling up to meet downtown. This was a mobilization,
an organization following King's Six Steps of nonviolence to bring
about social change. As the children bravely took to the streets,
the Birmingham police were waiting to rest them, putting them
in paddy wagons and school buses. Kelsey said she was
(07:47):
arrested on her first day marching and remained in jail
for four days. The site of young people peacefully protesting
reinvigorated the Birmingham movement, and throngs of people started attending
meetings again and joining the demonstrations. King changed his mind
as well about the effectiveness of children's crusades. Although the
(08:07):
police were mostly restrained the first day, that did not continue.
Law enforcement brought out water hoses and police dogs. Television
crews and newspapers filmed the young demonstrators getting arrested and
hosed down by the Birmingham police, causing national outrage. More
than two thousand children were reportedly arrested during the day's
(08:27):
long protest. They had locked up as many people as
they could possibly lock up, and they couldn't control it anymore,
and that's what broke the back of segregation, says Escue
a civil order collapse because they're warn't enough police. When
influential white businessmen and city officials saw the business district
swarming with demonstrators. In addition to President John F. Kennedy
(08:50):
demanding a resolution and sending Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall
to Birmingham to facilitate negotiations, whites city leaders called a
meeting with King. An agreement was made to desegregate lunch counters,
businesses and restrooms and improve hiring opportunities for black people
in Birmingham. I think we serve as a catalyst for change,
(09:13):
said Kelsey. Improvements hardly happened overnight in Birmingham. In September
nineteen sixty three, the ku Klux lan bombed the sixth
Strength Street Baptist Church, killing four black girls. Yet the
civil rights movement kept up the momentum, and the following
year President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in nineteen
sixty four. There's a story I didn't know, and I
(09:37):
bet most hearing didn't, that the civil rights movement almost
collapsed but for a bunch of children. And if you
don't think an army of normal folks can make change,
all you had to do is hear that story.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
An army of normal teenage protesters.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
No, that's what it was, an army of normal teenage protesters.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The other thing is, I bet even racist folks got
a lump in their throat when they saw seven and
eight nine year old children being water cannon and and
and chased up by dogs and stuff. I mean, as
dollar as it is for any age of human being
to be put under that kind of thing. You know,
(10:24):
those kids probably woke up a consciousness that I'd not
been awakened yet.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, it's a great point.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It makes only sense that it would.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So how I discovered this story here, I'll show you
on the map. I went to the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, which,
if you haven't bet is awesome. So I probably learned
like five or ten things I had never heard street.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so it's literally right across, right across from the
sixteenth Street Baptist Church where the bombing.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Is literally right across. Wow, in emissions like five or
ten bucks. I mean, everybody should go if they get
a chance. And so they literally started that crusade, a
lot of them at the church and then they walked
over to the park. In the park is where a
lot of them got water hosts.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's it. And there's light there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And they have like really powerful pictures you know, of
the crusade at the.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Civil Rights Museum. You're looking at these pictures that's happening.
It is literally across literally out the windows of these two.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah. And they have like memorials to all this in
the park too.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, anybody visiting Birmingham, Alex just gave you something to do.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
This is what's it called the Birmingham Civil Rights Rights Museum.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's really cool, amazing story, cool piece of history, and
for our purposes, a reminder that an army normal folks
really is the answer. Always hasn't always will work, and
in this case it was in an army of normal
teenage protesters.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
That maybe saved the civil rights movement and.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Encourage the adults and encourage the adults actually, And the
other thing is this.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You know, if you're an adult.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And you're like, I'm not going out there, and then
you watch a fifteen year old get beat water ros,
then you're like, Okay, I gotta go out there. I
can't let this happen to our kids. So that probably
motivated a bunch of adults to get reinvigorated in that cause.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Also, safety in numbers is a powerful thing. You gather
two thousand people like this.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, they overwhelmed the police department. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Actually there's a really cool story of that.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And they never fought back. They just sat there and
took it.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Yeah, a cool example. Moving to another shop, talk on this.
Have you heard of when Poe John Paul went back
to Poland? So Poland is you know, controlled by the
Soviet Union. You know, at this point, he's the first
Polish pope in history. Every other popa been Italian. He
goes back there and there's like three million people in
Victory Square and I think it was a warsaw.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, you think about it. It's just they were overwhelmed
and I know that story.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yeah, it's an amazing And he has this line too,
there's like no domain in which God shall not enter.
Like he didn't even like directly address the Soviets, but
you put a line out there like this, and it's
just like marshaling and imagine you're one of these people
in three million in the crowd, like I'm not alone.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
We can do this together.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And just a big old that's a literal army of
normal folks. Yeah, basically started the disintegration of the Soviet Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Very cool, all right, everybody.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That's Shop Talk number seventy three, The Children's Crusade When
the youth of Birmingham marched for justice, And I'm going
to give it a subtitle and potentially save the Civil
rights movement. Army of normal teenagers making a difference. It
still stands today. If you like this episode, would you
please share it with friends and on Social rate?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Who else is bringing you history lessons like this? Right,
it's a great one to share.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It's a great one to share. It's awesome, that's right.
This is an army of normal history people or something.
Share it on Social rate and review it, write me
anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Please give us ideas for.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Shop Talk, and if you know of anybody doing something
extraordinary in your corner of the world to make it
a better place, let us know about them. We're always
looking for interesting ideas of people to highlight on an
army Normal Folks. With that, thanks for joining us on
shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Do what you can. We'll see you next week.
Everybody. Welcome to shop. Talk number seventy three, Welcome in
the shop.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We decided to do a week this time.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It's a week.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's a week bell it's rainy out, so sad today,
it's just kind of yeah, it's just kind of a
chill day.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm well, Actually a cool story. Okay, actually a couple
of cool stories. I don't know why I'm going here.
You should stop asking me that question. Then I got
to come up with like random things to say out
at the top of my head.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Well, you have two apparently, Okay.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So there was like a dreamer.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
This was a tornado at like end of March this year,
early April, and it completely destroyed a bunch of places
in Mississippi, including this Bowl Bottom Farms.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's like cool pumpkin patch. So anyway, they completely.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Rebuilt it, and I helped them one of the days,
so they're now fully built back up, and took the
kids there on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I don't know if that's a good enough story
worth keeping in here.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
But and then we had a sure talk out. We
had a church pickleball with like one hundred people on
Saturday night, pickleball. Yeah, pickleball and potluck with one hundred people.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Actually that sounds fun.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It is fun.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I you know, I'd like to play pickleball with you.
You're playing tennis forever.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, never once played pickleball, but everybody says that it's
a blast.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
It's it's tennis, but ping pong or something.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
You just kind of think it's for commoners. Like, I'm
not dealing with this. It's just not.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Just having that time to mess with it because I've
been roped into doing this.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Podcast and coaching middle college.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And coaching high school and running a business and redoing
our house and I'm losing my mind. So that's it,
all right, Shop Talk number thirty three.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I think your body's caught up on us.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
For three seventy three. You said thirty three.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Seventy three, Yeah, Shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So the Children's Crusade when the Youth of Birmingham marchs
for justice. It's from the History Channel and Alex says,
this is uh thought provoking stuff. So we're going to
talk about the Children's Crusade when the Youth of Birmingham
March for justice on Shop Talk number seventy three. Right,
(02:06):
after these brief messages from our general sponsors, everybody, welcome
back to the shop Shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
We have discussed pickleball. It's very important today.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Fastest grounds born in America.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Apparently I need to play.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I want to play, you know, just at a time
because of this podcast. So the Children's Crusade, when the
youth of Birmingham marched for justice from the History Channel.
Toward the end of April nineteen sixty three, doctor Martin
Luther King Junior and fellow leaders in the civil rights
movement faced a grim reality in Birmingham. With the menished
(03:01):
support and fewer volunteers, their campaigned to end segregationist policies
were teetering on failure. That's interesting. I didn't even know that.
I't either, But when an orthodox plan to recruit black
children to march was implemented, the movement reversed itself, reinvigorating
(03:21):
the fight for racial equality and what become name as
the Children's Crusade. King had traveled to Birmingham in the
spring of nineteen sixty three along with Southern Christian Leadership
Conference co founder Reverend Ralph Abernathy, hoping to shore up
resistance against segregation and state Their partnered with the Alabama
(03:43):
Christian Movement for Human Rights, a local civil rights organization
led by Fred Shuttlesworth, a prominent minister and activist, But
the Alabama movement was fresh off a failed attempt to
end segregation in Albany, Georgia. Overall, fewer people were attending meeting,
sit ins, and marches. After King was arrested and confined
(04:04):
to a jail cell, where he wrote his famous work
Letter from a Birmingham jail, he knew, along with other
activists that a new strategy was essential if the campaign
were to succeed. The number of adults who were willing
to volunteer to get arrested had steadily dwindled those last
two weeks of April, and it looked like the movement
was about to fall apart, says Glenn Escue, a history
(04:28):
professor at Georgia State University and the author of the
nineteen ninety seven book. But for Birmingham, the local and
national movement in the civil rights struggle, you know, I
guess that makes sense. I mean, who wants to volunteer
to go get arrested, which is basically what they were
asking folks to.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Do yeah, and then have no income and you're screwed.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And possibly also in Alabama, these folks probably also getting
to beat to death to James Bevell, a member of
the SCLC, came up with an idea to include school
aged children in protests to help desegregate Birmingham. The strategy
involved recruiting popular teenagers from black high schools, such as
the quarterbacks and cheerleaders, who could influence their classmates to
(05:12):
attend meetings with them at black churches in Birmingham to
learn more about the non violent movement. There was also
an economic reason to have children participate, since adults risks
being fired from their jobs for missing work and protesting.
Janice Kelsey was fifteen which she attended a first meeting
for the children's Crusade. I knew what segregation was in separation,
(05:35):
but I didn't understand the extent or the level of
the inequities in that separation, recalls Kelsey, a Birmingham nave
who wrote about her experience in the movement in twenty
seventeen memoir I woke up with my mind on freedom.
Bebell post questions the students who discovered that hand me
down books and football helmets were not what white students used,
(05:58):
nor was there just one typewriter in the entire school
like black students side, but rooms with typewriters at the
white schools, said Kelsey. Things like that became personal to me,
and I decided I wanted to do something about it. King,
along with other activists and members in the black community,
were adamantly opposed to involving children in marches because of
(06:20):
the threats to violence from white mobs as well as
from policemen led by bull Connor. Eugene bull Connor, the
Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, notorious for his racist policies. Bevell, undeterred,
told the children to gather at sixteenth Street Baptist Church
on May second, nineteen sixty three. More than one thousand
(06:41):
students skip school to participate in the protest. The youth,
arranging ages seven to eighteen, held picket signs and marched
in groups of ten to fifty, singing freedom songs. We
were told what to expect, says Kelsey. We even saw
some film strips of people who had sat at lunch
counters and were spit on and pushed and all that.
(07:02):
We were told that if you decide to participate, that
this is a non violent movement, so you can't fight back.
The demonstrators had several destinations. Some went to city Hall,
others went to lunch counters or downtown shopping district. They
marched daily for almost a week. It was well thought out,
says Vicki Crawford, the director of Morehouse College Martin Luther
(07:24):
King Junior Collection. It was not just a bunch of
people calling up to meet downtown. This was a mobilization,
an organization following King's Six Steps of nonviolence to bring
about social change. As the children bravely took to the streets,
the Birmingham police were waiting to rest them, putting them
in paddy wagons and school buses. Kelsey said she was
(07:47):
arrested on her first day marching and remained in jail
for four days. The site of young people peacefully protesting
reinvigorated the Birmingham movement, and throngs of people started attending
meetings again and joining the demonstrations. King changed his mind
as well about the effectiveness of children's crusades. Although the
(08:07):
police were mostly restrained the first day, that did not continue.
Law enforcement brought out water hoses and police dogs. Television
crews and newspapers filmed the young demonstrators getting arrested and
hosed down by the Birmingham police, causing national outrage. More
than two thousand children were reportedly arrested during the day's
(08:27):
long protest. They had locked up as many people as
they could possibly lock up, and they couldn't control it anymore,
and that's what broke the back of segregation, says Escue
a civil order collapse because they're warn't enough police. When
influential white businessmen and city officials saw the business district
swarming with demonstrators. In addition to President John F. Kennedy
(08:50):
demanding a resolution and sending Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall
to Birmingham to facilitate negotiations, whites city leaders called a
meeting with King. An agreement was made to desegregate lunch counters,
businesses and restrooms and improve hiring opportunities for black people
in Birmingham. I think we serve as a catalyst for change,
(09:13):
said Kelsey. Improvements hardly happened overnight in Birmingham. In September
nineteen sixty three, the ku Klux lan bombed the sixth
Strength Street Baptist Church, killing four black girls. Yet the
civil rights movement kept up the momentum, and the following
year President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in nineteen
sixty four. There's a story I didn't know, and I
(09:37):
bet most hearing didn't, that the civil rights movement almost
collapsed but for a bunch of children. And if you
don't think an army of normal folks can make change,
all you had to do is hear that story.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
An army of normal teenage protesters.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
No, that's what it was, an army of normal teenage protesters.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The other thing is, I bet even racist folks got
a lump in their throat when they saw seven and
eight nine year old children being water cannon and and
and chased up by dogs and stuff. I mean, as
dollar as it is for any age of human being
to be put under that kind of thing. You know,
(10:24):
those kids probably woke up a consciousness that I'd not
been awakened yet.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, it's a great point.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It makes only sense that it would.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So how I discovered this story here, I'll show you
on the map. I went to the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, which,
if you haven't bet is awesome. So I probably learned
like five or ten things I had never heard street.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so it's literally right across, right across from the
sixteenth Street Baptist Church where the bombing.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Is literally right across. Wow, in emissions like five or
ten bucks. I mean, everybody should go if they get
a chance. And so they literally started that crusade, a
lot of them at the church and then they walked
over to the park. In the park is where a
lot of them got water hosts.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's it. And there's light there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And they have like really powerful pictures you know, of
the crusade at the.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Civil Rights Museum. You're looking at these pictures that's happening.
It is literally across literally out the windows of these two.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah. And they have like memorials to all this in
the park too.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, anybody visiting Birmingham, Alex just gave you something to do.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
This is what's it called the Birmingham Civil Rights Rights Museum.
That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's really cool, amazing story, cool piece of history, and
for our purposes, a reminder that an army normal folks
really is the answer. Always hasn't always will work, and
in this case it was in an army of normal
teenage protesters.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
That maybe saved the civil rights movement and.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Encourage the adults and encourage the adults actually, And the
other thing is this.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You know, if you're an adult.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And you're like, I'm not going out there, and then
you watch a fifteen year old get beat water ros,
then you're like, Okay, I gotta go out there. I
can't let this happen to our kids. So that probably
motivated a bunch of adults to get reinvigorated in that cause.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Also, safety in numbers is a powerful thing. You gather
two thousand people like this.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, they overwhelmed the police department. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Actually there's a really cool story of that.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And they never fought back. They just sat there and
took it.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Yeah, a cool example. Moving to another shop, talk on this.
Have you heard of when Poe John Paul went back
to Poland? So Poland is you know, controlled by the
Soviet Union. You know, at this point, he's the first
Polish pope in history. Every other popa been Italian. He
goes back there and there's like three million people in
Victory Square and I think it was a warsaw.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, you think about it. It's just they were overwhelmed
and I know that story.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yeah, it's an amazing And he has this line too,
there's like no domain in which God shall not enter.
Like he didn't even like directly address the Soviets, but
you put a line out there like this, and it's
just like marshaling and imagine you're one of these people
in three million in the crowd, like I'm not alone.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
We can do this together.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And just a big old that's a literal army of
normal folks. Yeah, basically started the disintegration of the Soviet Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Very cool, all right, everybody.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That's Shop Talk number seventy three, The Children's Crusade When
the youth of Birmingham marched for justice, And I'm going
to give it a subtitle and potentially save the Civil
rights movement. Army of normal teenagers making a difference. It
still stands today. If you like this episode, would you
please share it with friends and on Social rate?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Who else is bringing you history lessons like this? Right,
it's a great one to share.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It's a great one to share. It's awesome, that's right.
This is an army of normal history people or something.
Share it on Social rate and review it, write me
anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Please give us ideas for.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Shop Talk, and if you know of anybody doing something
extraordinary in your corner of the world to make it
a better place, let us know about them. We're always
looking for interesting ideas of people to highlight on an
army Normal Folks. With that, thanks for joining us on
shop Talk number seventy three.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Do what you can. We'll see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.