Black Church, Youth, and the Civil Rights Movement

The role of youth in the civil rights movement who were nurtured and raised in the Black church is often underestimated when this history is told. Their strength and enthusiasm often became the source of the sweeping change that transformed society and became the symbol of a fresh, vibrant, and strong wind that blew through the United States during this turbulent decade of protest and change. The early and prominent examples of this involvement occurred during the school desegregation battles that were fought on the public stage during the early to mid-1950s through the 1960s. In cases such as the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the desegregation of the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, by Ruby Bridges ...