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Remembering historic Children’s March
YOUNGSTOWN
Janice Wesley Kelsey, who participated in the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham, Ala., visited Youngstown City Schools on Wednesday to tell her story of segregation and striving for equality.
In the 1960s, Kelsey was told she wasn’t being treated the same as white students at their all-white school and that she was getting a second-rate education. That’s all it took for her to agree to join the march.
“I felt like I was being mistreated and didn’t realize [it] until someone told me,” Kelsey said. “I didn’t like being judged by the color of my skin.”
The Children’s March was an effort to end segregation and promote equal rights. Part of joining the march included learning songs about freedom and making a commitment to nonviolence.
In May 1963, Kelsey was one of thousands of children who stepped out of the 16th Street Baptist Church and walked across the street to Kelly Ingram Park. More than 1,000 of the children, including Kelsey, were arrested and taken to jail. Kelsey was 16 in 1963.
The following day, Bull Connor, Birmingham’s director of public safety, called out policemen with dogs and firefighters with fire hoses to turn on the children.
Penny Wells, the director of the Mahoning Valley chapter of Sojourn to the Past, said she was excited that Kelsey was able to talk to students about the march.
“She’s teaching kids about leadership, and they’re learning they have power to make a difference and they should vote when they turn 18.”
“If you don’t know your history, you’re likely to repeat it,” Kelsey said. “A lot of kids don’t recognize [that] this is history. These are the sacrifices that were made in order for us to be where we are today. If you don’t share it, they won’t know it, and I want them to know it. ... It can happen again unless you stay woke.”
Ania Muhammad, Rayen Early College Middle School eighth-grader, found Kelsey’s presentation interesting.
“I know a lot about my history, but I like when it’s somebody that has been through it saying it – what they’ve been through in the process.”
Early College eighth-grader Alyssa White said Kelsey’s lecture was educating. “There was a lot of stuff I didn’t know,” she said.
And Aalayha Bell, also an eighth-grader, was inspired. “She’s [Kelsey] brave for being able to come up here and talk about her experience,” she said.
Kelsey’s strength hasn’t wavered over the years.
“If I could go back and do it again, I’d still go to jail,” she said. “I’m proud for the distance we have come, but we still have a ways to go to resolve our differences – not just racial, but a lot of differences in our society.”