Birmingham Children's Crusade
Day 1 of the march was May 2, 1963. Bevel dubbed it “D-Day,” a direct reference to the Normandy Invasion that led to the Allied victory in World War II. The morning of the movement, some children went directly to the 16th Street Baptist Church located in downtown Birmingham, but many went to school and later in the morning walked out of class; thus making more of a point in their protest.  Eventually almost a thousand school children, ages six to eighteen, congregated in Kelly Ingram Park, 16th Street Baptist Church, and Metropolitan AME Zion Church to begin their march to city hall. The youth were organized into groups and as each group was confronted with barricades and policemen, and subsequently arrested, another “platoon” would emerge from the church. This phenomenon of the seemingly countless droves of students exiting the church puzzled an officer who asked how many more children were in the church and upon hearing, “at least a thousand,” uttered, “God A’mighty.” By the end of the first day, over 900 students had been arrested, and parents were discouraged from paying bail. As stated in OAH Magazine of History, “King was criticized for using children in the demonstrations. One of the most vocal criticisms came from Malcolm X who stated, ‘Real men don't put their children on the firing line.’ King responded by saying that the demonstrations allowed children to develop “a sense of their own stake in freedom and justice”. Also, not coincidentally, the 16th Street Baptist Church was the church that was bombed on September 15, 1963, just four months later.