We’ve Got a Job: Resources for Kids

Many resources are available for students to research the Children’s March.

Audrey, James, Arnetta, and Wash told their stories in video interviews

• Growing Up Black in Segregated Birmingham
• How Black Youngsters Became Aware of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham
• How Black Youngsters Decided to Protest Segregation
• Confronting the Birmingham Police
• Birmingham, Alabama, May 2, 1963
• Audrey Faye Hendricks, Age 9, Goes to Jail
• The Civil Rights Movement was a Spiritual Movement
• Dr. King Stood for Brotherhood
• Birmingham After Integration in the 1960s
• Sharing Stories About Civil Rights & Encouraging Black Youngsters to Participate in Politics

Primary Source Documents on the Children’s March

• Birmingham’s Segregation Ordinances
• Newspaper articles and headlines
• The Petition for Permit to march requested by Reverend Shuttlesworth
• The  Points for Progress that movement activists demanded
• Police Summons for a young “delinquent” marcher
• The Ten Commandments of Nonviolence that Arnetta signed. (And, please watch my video about nonviolence.)
• “Which Side Are You On?” flier
• Kids in Birmingham 1963 is a terrific, continually updated source of information and stories.

“We’ve Got a Job”: The Song

Composed by Carlton Reece. Sung by the Birmingham Movement Choir. (Used with permission, not to be duplicated or transferred)

Other Sources of Information

• The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, A Young Civil Rights Activist
• Peachtree Publisher’s We’ve Got a Job website
• PBS video about the Children’s March
• Presentation by Cynthia Levinson on We’ve Got a Job at the Library of Congress
• Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
• Zinn Education Project
• International Civil Rights Center & Museum
• National Civil Rights Museum
• Smithsonian Folkways
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
• The King Center
• “When the Children Marched,” a documentary produced by high school student Alfredo Pratico for National History Day.

How and Why I Researched and Wrote We’ve Got a Job

• Video: How I Researched We’ve Got a Job 
• Interviews include YALSA’s The Hub, Kirkus Reviews, the Library of Congress, and Cynsations

Note to students: You are welcome to contact me with further questions—AFTER you have read We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March and searched all of the above sites. I am happy to respond to questions to which the answers are not available here.