Impact

As a result of the protest and the national outcry, an “agreement with the city of Birmingham to desegregate lunch counters, restrooms, drinking fountains, and department store fitting rooms within ninety days, to hire blacks in stores as salesmen and clerks, and to release hundreds of jail protesters on bond” (Blackpast.org) was reached.

“We fought hard in the civil rights struggle. We fought to make things better and to make things right for our people. A lot of blood was shed. A lot of people lost their lives so they could get where they are today. We’ve come a long ways, but we’ve got a long ways to go.”

-Mamie King-Chalmers, NBC Nightly News

The march showed that even children as young as four-years-old knew the difference between right and wrong and that they should be treated as equal citizens of the United States. They knew that even though it might have hurt at the moment, in the big picture they were doing the right things to provide a better life for themselves and for many generations to come.

- Newspapers.com

Encyclopedia of Alabama:

“There was a horrific noise and the building seemed to be shaken off the foundation. I remembered something hit me in my head and I realized it was the light fixture. I began to smell fumes and everything got real dark. I remembered hearing a lot of screams from the children, and church members were running to get out of the building to a place of safety.”-Barbara Cross, NBC Nightly News

The successes in Birmingham was motivation for other Civil Rights protests and successes. There was the Selma to Montgomery march, which is where “protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups,”(History Channel Website) to gain voting rights. Congress then passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Rights Act made it legal for African Americans to vote. Although it was already legal for them to vote, it was very hard for them to do so since they “were told by election officials that they had gotten the date, time or polling place wrong, that they possessed insufficient literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly.”(History Channel Website) However, when the Voting Rights Act was passed, white people couldn’t use literacy tests to exclude African Americans from practicing their right to vote.

Digital Public Library of America:

The Children’s March inspired John F. Kennedy to propose the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it “Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin” (History Channel Webiste). This meant that African Americans could no longer be denied service because of their race. Racism didn’t disappear from America, but the Civil Rights act ended legal segregation.

“Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.”

-President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address

Are Things Better Today?

African American rights have improved drastically since the Children's March. There are no more Jim Crow laws, and segregation is illegal. African American people, at least according to the law, should have equal rights and equal opportunities as all citizens.

Audrey Hendricks, pbs.org

However, racism still exists and even though illegal, some institutions show unfair bias against people of color. In fact, “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.” (NAACP), which is an indication of bias in law enforcement and in the criminal justice system. In fact, the recently created Black Lives Matter Movement is working “to intervene when violence was inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.” (Black Lives Matter) Although situations have improved for African American children, there are still numerous problems for them. African American children are struggling in healthcare, and “African American babies are nearly two and half times as likely to die in their first year of life as the majority population.” (National Center for Biotechnology Information) Also, some people say that schools are still segregated even though that is illegal. In fact, “Black children are five times as likely as white children to attend schools that are highly segregated by race and ethnicity." (Emma García)

“I was in a Sunday School room two to three doors down from where the bomb was placed that killed the four girls… I remember a loud deafening noise and seeing glass flying out of the windows to my left. Instinctively, I turned my back and shielded my head with my arms to protect myself from whatever it was that was happening. From that moment on I lost an awareness of my friends that were in the room. It was as if a dark cloud had enveloped me. I could see but just a few feet ahead of me. There was the sound of ringing in my ears and of muffled voices yelling and screaming of which I could make no sense. I had no idea of what was happening nor concept of how much time I was in the room or in the building itself.”- Jim Lowe, NBC Nightly News

Impact of the March

Are Things Better Today?