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Hey, history lovers.

I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, the show about the past, rediscovered.

After the 2018 shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in southern Florida,

student survivors organized rallies, confronted lawmakers,

and marched to the State House to demand new gun control laws.

If you don't do anything to prevent this from coming, from continuing to occur,

that number of gunshot victims will go up, and the numbers that they are worse will go down.

And we will be worthless to you to every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you.

For many, the images of children demanding change was breathtaking.

Even those who opposed new gun laws admired their courage.

But it wasn't the first time that children were taking a stand. History shows that kids,

with their innocence, honesty, and moral urgency, can shame adults into discovering their

conscience. It worked that way in the 1960s when a movement

called the Children's Crusade saw young people redirecting the arc of history.

It was May of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had targeted Birmingham as key to

ending segregation throughout the South. But the movement there was flagging. One of King's advisors

recommended a new strategy, enlisting black children in their fight for equal rights. At first,

King hesitated. He feared for the kid's safety, but he

prayed and reflected and finally accepted that putting children in danger could help determine

their future. On May 2nd, 1963, school gates were locked, but that didn't stop hundreds of

...