logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2013
9m 13s

The Children's Crusade

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Birmingham in Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in the USA in 1963. In May that year thousands of black schoolchildren responded to a call from Martin Luther King to protest against segregation at the height of racial tensions. It became known as the Children's Crusade.

Gwendolyn Webb was 14 years old at the time and took part. Listen to her story.

(Photo: Firefighters turn their hoses on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama. Credit: AP Photo/Bill Hudson)

Up next
Jun 2025
Civil rights swim-in
On 18 June 1964, black and white protesters jumped into a ‘whites only’ swimming pool at a motel in St Augustine, in Florida.Photos of the Monson Motor Lodge manager, James Brock, pouring cleaning acid into the pool to get them out, made global headlines.The following day, the Ci ... Show More
10m 48s
Jun 2025
Charleston church shooting
On 17 June 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof attended a bible group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States. As it was ending, the 21-year-old started shooting and killed nine people.Polly Sheppard was one of the survivo ... Show More
8m 59s
Mar 2025
King Kong: South Africa's first all-black musical
In 1959, Todd Matshikiza composed the score for King Kong, it was South Africa’s first musical with an all-black cast and it opened to critical acclaim. About the rise and fall of the heavyweight boxer Ezekiel Dlamini, it defied apartheid with the collaboration between black and ... Show More
10m 10s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2025
MLK Bonus: The Civil Rights Children's Crusade
To further celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we're re-releasing our classic episode about the Children's Crusade, an effort to bring the youth of Birmingham, Alabama into the Civil Rights Movement in order to affect change across the country.April 20, 1963. Dr. Martin Lut ... Show More
24m 15s
Oct 2013
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
On September 15 1963, four young black girls were killed in a racist bomb attack against a church in Birmingham, Alabama in the US. The Baptist church at 16th Street had been a centre for civil rights activities in the city. Sarah Collins Rudolph was badly injured in the attack, ... Show More
8m 54s
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - On The March | 5
As the Civil Rights movement entered the landmark years of 1963 and 1964, activists had faced many challenges - but had also won many victories. Now, they sought to launch new campaigns in Alabama and Mississippi and mass demonstrations in Washington D.C. and New York City. In th ... Show More
46m 29s
Apr 2024
Soweto uprising: Children who marched against apartheid
When South African schoolchildren marched in protest against having to study Afrikaans in 1976, they were gunned down by the police.The killings sparked a cycle of protests across the country against the racist apartheid regime.In 2010, march organiser Bongi Mkhabela told Alan Jo ... Show More
9m 52s
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - Strides Towards Freedom | 2
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal, on a “separate but equal” basis. But for more than five decades, life for black and white Americans was seldom equal, but always separate.To fight segregation, the NAACP and others exposed the dismal and debasing c ... Show More
35m 53s
Feb 2022
Little Rock
On the morning of the 25th September, 1957, nine African-American teenagers climbed the steps into Little Rock Central High School, faced by a teaming mass of hostility and hatred. They were hit, shouted at, spat on, and tripped up. Only one of them would eventually graduate from ... Show More
41 m
Sep 2011
The Freedom Riders: CORE's First Wave
<p>In 1961, buses and terminals in the South were illegally segregated. The Civil Rights group CORE sent riders to test the law, riding from D.C., to New Orleans. However, no one was prepared for the violence that waited in Alabama. Tune in to learn more.</p><p> </p> Learn more a ... Show More
17m 37s
Oct 2018
Civil Rights - Prairie Fire | 4
As the Civil Rights movement entered the Sixties, a new generation of activists took the fore. Frustrated by the pace of progress but emboldened by strides made in the previous decade, students embraced “nonviolent direct action,” protest techniques that were provocative but peac ... Show More
38m 17s