The New Strategy

The New Strategy. March Route to Retail. By the end of April 1963, the national media and local Whites were losing interest in “Project C.” Fewer Blacks volunteered to be arrested at downtown stores and lunch counters. So, Rev. James Bevel, a field Secretary with the SCLC, turned to a new group of recruits - schoolchildren. Whites could fire Black adults from their jobs, threaten their homes with foreclosure or apply other economic pressures to keep Blacks from marching, but they could not scare Black children in the same ways. On April 29, Bevel's SCLC team blanketed Black high schools with hundreds of flyers telling children to leave school and rally at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. , Pairing marker , May 8, 1963 , SCLC staff member Rev. James Bevel (talking through a bullhorn) spearheads the recruitment of schoolchildren for “Project C," despite Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s initial reluctance. Bevel and his SCLC team hold workshops for the young recruits, teaching them the purpose and principles of non-violent protest. Soon, Birmingham's Black children become the newest, youngest and most effective foot soldiers in the battle for freedom. , "The marches taught the children more about democracy than any classroom lecture." , Odessa Woolfolk , Former Birmingham City School teacher and co-founder of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Lesson B5: Rev. Bevel's decision to involve schoolchildren in the marches was a controversial one. Was it a wise move? Explain.