We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March

In 1963, the Civil Rights movement was falling apart. After a series of setbacks across the south, the movement was losing direction and momentum. No southern city was more divided than Birmingham, Alabama, home of the infamous Bull Connor. Dr. Martin Luther King conceived an ingenious plan: fill the Birmingham jails by arranging a series of public protests at which participants would be arrested as a result of their nonviolent action, paralyzing the city and drawing national and world attention to the horrors and injustices of segregation. But the stakes were too high for much adult participant in the movement—job loss, jailing, and quite possibly even death. Instead, against Dr. King's better judgment, young people led the protests.

Through the experiences of four of the original participants, We Have a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black students who voluntarily went to jail between May 2 and May 11, 1963. Fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s precept to "fill the jails," they succeeded in desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America.