A Legacy of Young Changemakers

This month marked a Civil Rights Movement Anniversary: The founding of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960.

- Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President Emerita, Children's Defense Fund (CDF)

People often forget that children and young people were major frontline soldiers in the Civil Rights Movement. Six-year-old Ruby Bridges in New Orleans, the Little Rock Nine at Central High School in Arkansas, and other Black students desegregated schools across the South, often standing up to howling mobs. Many, including Bridges, (who later became a Children’s Defense Fund colleague), continue to write books and speak at schools and college campuses across the country, sharing their experiences with young people, helping students today understand that none of this is ancient history in our country's story. After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed in Birmingham in April 1963, young people responded with the Birmingham Children’s Crusade in May. More than 1,000 students walked out from local schools to march, withstanding fire hoses and police dogs, to challenge Bull Connor's brutal rule and topple segregation in that city. College-aged young people coordinated voter registration drives, participated in Freedom Rides testing segregation laws on interstate buses, conducted voter education and Freedom Schools during 1964's Freedom Summer in Mississippi, and more. They faced pervasive risks of arrest, in