I didn’t live through the Civil Rights Movement, but I have been reading quite a lot about it in the last few years.  Even so I was surprised by what I learned from Cynthia Levinson’s We’ve Got a Job:  The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March (Scholastic 2012).

I had read and studied Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” but I didn’t realize that the entire movement was at such a pivotal crossroads in 1963.

I knew that the violent images of police turning fire hoses and dogs on to the protesters jolted a nation, but I did not realize that the majority of protesters were teenagers were children.

Levinson tells the stories of four children who came to the Civil Rights Movement and the Birmingham Children’s March in different ways.  Audrey Hendricks was one of the youngest marchers at nine years old, but she had grown up in a family involved with organizing and taking a stand for equality.  Washington Booker III grew up without the privileges of Audrey’s family, and frequently found trouble.  James W. Stewart, the son of a doctor, was a strong student, but still chafed under the restrictions caused by segregation.  Arnetta Streeter worked with the Peace Ponies, a social and savings club at school, to bring justice through peaceful protests.

Throughout the stories of these children and teens, we learn the history of segregation in Birmingham and the history of the struggle to gain equality and destroy the system of segregation.  Once again, I am stunned by the hatred felt by those who supported segregation and impressed with the courage of those who worked to e