From New York, this is Democracy Now!
Writers are striking because we’re worried that this industry
is not one that’s going to be able to sustain a career.
We are worried about things that most workers are worried about,
like cost of living, corporate cannibalization
and stagnant wages.
For the first time in 15 years,
Hollywood writers have gone on strike.
We’ll speak to a striking writer
who works on the ABC hit comedy Abbott Elementary.
Then to Texas to look at yet another mass shooting.
On Friday, a man armed with an AR-15 shot
dead five of his neighbors, including a 9-year-old boy.
Instead of calling for gun reform,
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
is being accused of dehumanizing the victims
by calling the dead "illegal immigrants."
And 60 years ago today,
the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, began.
And how many of us remember that it was young children —
11, 12, 13, 14 years old, some as young as 9 or 10 —
who faced police dogs and faced high-power water hoses
and went to jail for our sake?
We’ll hear Birmingham native Angela Davis
describing this pivotal moment in civil rights history.
We’ll also speak to longtime Birmingham
civil rights activist
Janice Kelsey, who took part in the Children’s Crusade,
and Paul Kix, author of the new book,
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live:
Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America.
All that and more, coming up.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,
The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Medical workers in Sudan
are warning of a mounting catastrophe
as airstrikes continue to rock
Khartoum despite a declared ceasefire
between Sudan’s army and a rival paramilitary group.
Eighteen days into the fighting,
Sudan’s healthcare system has largely collapsed,
and aid workers are describing increasingly
desperate scenes with bodies
piled in the streets of the capital
amid critical shortages of water, food and fuel.
The United Nations Refugee Agency warned Monday
the crisis could push more than 800,000 people out of Sudan.
This is Raouf Mazou,
the U.N.’s assistant high commissioner for refugees.
Raouf Mazou:
"Without a quick resolution of this crisis,
we will continue to see more people forced to flee
in search of safety and basic assistance. …
Thus far, about 73,000 people have arrived
in neighboring countries."
Ukraine’s government says
a fresh wave of Russian missile attacks
has destroyed an ammunition depot
and injured dozens of civilians.
This follows Russian attacks over the weekend
blamed for two dozen civilian deaths.
On Monday, Ukraine’s military struck inside Russian territory,
derailing a freight train
in the Russian border region of Bryansk,
whose governor also said Ukrainian
shelling on a Russian village killed four civilians.
On Saturday, Ukrainian drone strikes blew up an oil depot
in the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the leader of the private
Russian mercenary firm Wagner Group has threatened mutiny
unless Moscow agrees to send his forces more ammunition
as they battle for control of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin lashed out against
Russia’s military establishment in a video
posted on a Russian social media channel.
Yevgeny Prigozhin: "Happy birthday!
And happy birthday to Wagner Group!
If the company is destined to die,
it won’t be at the hands of the Ukrainian army or NATO,
but because of our domestic bastard bureaucrats."
On Monday, the Biden administration said Russia
has suffered 100,000 casualties since December,
with more than 20,000 Russian fighters killed in action.
Many of the dead and wounded are Russian convicts
whose sentences were pardoned in exchange
for joining Wagner’s mercenary army.
President Joe Biden welcomed Philippine
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
to the White House Monday, saying the United States remains
"ironclad" in its defense of the Philippines,
including the South China Sea.
The meeting came after Marcos granted the Pentagon access
to four more military bases in the Philippines,
and following the largest-ever U.S.-Filipino joint war games
in the South China Sea.
Protesters gathered outside the White House on Monday
to denounce the military alliance.
This is Nina Macapinlac of the group Bayan USA.
Nina Macapinlac: "Supposedly,
they are going to reaffirm their 'special relationship'
between the U.S. and the Philippines,
but we know that that means the relationship
between the colonizer and the colonized. …
Marcos is not welcome here!
Stop selling out the Philippines!"
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Monday the United States
could default on its debts as early as June 1,
unless Congress takes action to raise the limit
on the national debt.
Yellen’s warning came less than a week after House Republicans
approved a bill to raise the debt limit
in exchange for a 13% cut in discretionary spending,
with huge cuts to programs including student debt relief,
food assistance, Medicaid and renewable energy.
On Monday, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
pressed ahead with a two-year suspension
of the federal debt ceiling
that would not contain federal spending cuts.
The Senate is set to hold a hearing
on the debt ceiling this Thursday,
and President Biden has called House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
and other congressional leaders
to a White House meeting on May 9.
The Senate Judiciary Committee
is holding a hearing on Supreme Court ethics reform today
amid a mounting series of scandals among justices.
In recent weeks, it’s been revealed that Justice Neil
Gorsuch sold a property
he co-owned to the head of a major law firm
that has since had 22 cases before the Supreme Court.
And ProPublica reports Justice Clarence
Thomas failed to disclose gifts and payments
from Texas billionaire and conservative activist
Harlan Crow.
In the latest revelations, Business Insider
reports the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Roberts was paid $10.3 million in commissions
as a job recruiter placing lawyers at elite law firms.
Jane Sullivan Roberts earned hundreds of thousands of dollars
from one law firm that argued a case before
Chief Justice Roberts.
Syria’s government says one soldier was killed
and seven people wounded earlier today
as Israeli warplanes bombed the main airport
in the northern city of Aleppo, knocking it out of service.
This follows hundreds of Israeli attacks on Syria
in recent years, including two similar Israeli
airstrikes on Aleppo’s airport in March.
The airport is key to efforts to ship humanitarian relief
to northern Syria following the devastating
February 6 earthquakes that killed more than
50,000 people, including over 6,000 Syrians.
Palestinian prisoner
Khader Adnan has died in an Israeli prison
following an 87-day hunger strike.
Adnan began refusing food in February
to protest his arrest under Israel’s
so-called administrative detention program,
the policy of holding Palestinians
without charge for up to years at a time.
Human rights groups say Israel is holding more than 1,000
Palestinians prisoner under the policy.
In Brazil, at least three Yanomami
Indigenous leaders were killed over the weekend
after heavily armed, masked illegal miners
stormed a village. The attack comes
as Brazil’s government continues its operation
targeting illegal miners in Yanomami territory.
The efforts were launched by President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva as part of his campaign
to protect the Amazon and Indigenous communities.
Lula has legally recognized six Indigenous territories,
a move crucial to protecting
Indigenous land from illegal miners and loggers.
This is Lula speaking Friday.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva:
"I do not want any Indigenous land
to remain undemarcated during my term in office.
It is a commitment
I have made and a commitment to you since the campaign. …
We cannot allow what happened in the Yanomami lands
in the state of Roraima to happen again.
This cannot happen again to any of the Indigenous people."
Hollywood writers have gone on strike for the first time
in 15 years. The Writers Guild of America,
which represents more than 11,000 movie and TV writers,
says pay and working conditions
have deteriorated in recent years
due to the rise of streaming services like Netflix
and Amazon Prime.
After headlines, we’ll go to Hollywood for the latest.
Millions of people took to the streets
around the world to mark May Day,
calling for livable wages and stronger labor protections.
In Latin America, workers in Guatemala denounced corruption
and intensifying repression in the country.
In Chile, police clashed with protesters
in the capital Santiago.
Thousands also rallied in Argentina and Venezuela,
where U.S. sanctions have exacerbated poverty.
In Canada, tens of thousands of federal workers
have reached a deal with the government
that includes higher wages,
bringing an end to Canada’s largest-ever public sector
strike for about 100,000 workers.
But more than 35,000 revenue agency workers
who’ve been on strike
since mid-April are still in negotiations.
In Lebanon, migrant domestic workers led a march in Beirut
demanding better working conditions and protections.
In Sri Lanka, workers protested a bailout agreement
with the International Monetary Fund
as the country faces its worst economic crisis in history.
In the United Kingdom, nurses and other workers
with the National Health Service
walked off the job as they continue to demand higher wages.
In more news from Europe,
hundreds of thousands took to the streets across France
as opposition grows against President Emmanuel Macron’s
move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Close to 300 protesters were arrested as violence
erupted in several cities, including Paris,
with police firing tear gas at demonstrators.
This is a protester in Paris.
Protester: "I’m more determined than ever.
Macron has to stay on for four more years?
We will go on for four more years, no problem.
I’m here. There will be more of us.
We will win in the end, I’m convinced."
In Puerto Rico, protesters rallied outside
the San Juan offices of the Financial Oversight
and Management Board,
a nonelected body imposed by the U.S. government
that controls the island’s budget.
Workers demanded the board’s expulsion from Puerto Rico
as debt
has led to unprecedented austerity measures
including cuts to public education,
pensions and workers’ benefits. This is a teacher from Vieques,
where protesters pushed out the U.S. Navy 20 years ago,
at the May Day action in San Juan.
Hilcia Guadalupe: "Vieques is a reflection
of what happens in the rest of the country.
It is also the reflection of the greatest battles in the country.
As we say today, the U.S. Navy did not withdraw;
we took them out.
The board will not withdraw; we need to take them out."
And those are some of the headlines this is Democracy
Now, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report.
I’m Amy Goodman.
AMY GOODMAN: For the first time in 15 years,
over 11,000 Hollywood TV and movie writers
have gone on strike.
The strike began at midnight Pacific time
after contract negotiations failed.
In a statement, the Writers Guild of America said writers
are facing a, quote, "existential crisis,"
in part because pay and working conditions
have deteriorated in recent years
due to the rise of streaming services like Netflix
and Amazon Prime. The union said, quote,
"The companies’ behavior has created
a gig economy inside a union workforce,
and their immovable stance in this negotiation
has betrayed a commitment
to further devaluing the profession of writing," unquote.
The strike is expected to halt Hollywood productions
and force late-night TV shows to go dark.
They’ll run tape.
On Monday, Jimmy Fallon, the host of The Tonight Show,
voiced support for his writers
ahead of the start of the strike.
JIMMY FALLON: I support my writers.
But we have a lot of staff and crew
that will be affected by this, you know,
but they’ve got to get a fair deal.
So, yeah, I’ll do whatever I can to support them.
And hopefully there is no strike,
and they can figure out a deal.
REPORTER: I hope not, either.
JIMMY FALLON: Yeah, I need —
I need my writers. I need them real bad.
REPORTER: You need your writers. We need to laugh.
JIMMY FALLON: Yeah, I got no show without my writers.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Jimmy Fallon
at the Met Gala, where Quinta Brunson also spoke.
She’s the creator of the award-winning ABC
hit comedy Abbott Elementary.
QUINTA BRUNSON: I’m a member of WGA and support WGA
and, you know, them getting what we,
us — us, getting what we need.
So, I hope that — no one wants a strike,
but I hope that we’re able to rectify this,
whatever that means.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Quinta Brunson,
creator of the award-winning ABC hit comedy Abbott Elementary.
We’re joined now by Brittani Nichols,
writer on Abbott Elementary who’s now on strike,
a Los Angeles-based captain
for Writers Guild of America West.
Brittani Nichols, welcome to Democracy Now!
The strike is just hours old at this point.
Also, congratulations on Abbott Elementary.
What an amazing, fantastic show about the Philadelphia schools
and the amazing teachers and the kids inside!
But I wanted to ask you,
starting with what’s happening right now
and what you’re demanding as you go to the picket lines.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: We are demanding
that this industry be one that can sustain a career.
It’s sort of as simple as that.
We have a consistently profitable business,
but right now the actions of the studios are ones
that seem like they only care about Wall Street.
They’re chasing a rabbit they’re never going to catch,
and in that pursuit,
they’re running over the workers of this industry.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain exactly how it works.
You know, people watch these TV shows and movies nonstop
but really have very little idea of what goes into making them.
And why exactly streaming has —
well, you talk about creating a gig economy.
Explain what you mean.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: So, the studios have devalued
our contributions.
They have shifted the industry to prioritize streaming,
while not following that up with the actions
of making sure that our pay reflects those changes.
A lot of the ways that writers are able to sustain
a career are through residuals.
That means that we’re taking part
in that profit participation when a show gets reaired
or a show gets sold or a movie gets aired.
That’s when we get a little bit of that pie.
And the amount of the pie that we’re getting in streaming
is almost nonexistent.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the various streaming companies
who you are actually negotiating with.
Name names.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: Well, there’s Hulu, Peacock,
HBO Max, Paramount Plus, Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus —
a lot of pluses — Netflix and Amazon,
I believe, are the big ones.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain the position they’re taking.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: I mean, they’re taking the position
of rejecting our proposals and refusing to make a counter.
With all of our major proposals,
that is the feedback that we’ve gotten thus far.
They have forced us to go on strike by not engaging.
They sort of have said, "We do not care
that you all can no longer make a career in this industry."
They just want to continue to get as much work out of us
for the least amount of money.
I think that that’s not something that’s unique
to our industry.
It’s something that has been happening
and will continue to happen, and we’re standing up to it.
We have to take a stand,
or there won’t be television writers anymore.
They will negotiate us out of existence.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Brittani, explain how the networks
are connected to the streaming services.
It’s not two entirely separate spheres.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: Yeah.
So, the studios all own these services.
I mean, they came up with it.
Writers didn’t come up with these streaming services.
They came up with them.
That is a large part of the profit
that they are now bringing in.
And they continue to invest in these services.
So, you know, every three years,
you probably hear these studios crying poor and behaving
as if they’re like these mom-and-pop businesses
while they rake in billions and billions of profits,
but they are the ones who caused this shift,
and so they should be responsible
for paying the workers that are now providing the product
that they continue to turn out
and put on these streaming services fairly.
AMY GOODMAN: In March,
you shared a graph of "Writers Working at MBA Minimum."
"MBA" stands for minimum basic agreement.
Talk about the problems with compensation in your industry,
especially for writers of color like yourself.
You also tweeted, "Our minimum wage has become our ceiling."
BRITTANI NICHOLS: Yes.
So, it used to be that, I think 10 years ago,
a third of writers were working at that baseline.
And now half of our writers are working at that baseline.
TV writer pay has fallen 23% when you adjust for inflation.
So it’s really affecting every writer,
from staff writer all the way up to show runners.
It’s a product of this corporate cannibalization.
And our decreased, not even just stagnant,
wages are making it impossible
for anyone to put a career together.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what happens next?
I mean, for people who watch TV,
the late-night shows will now go to tape.
You had people like Colbert and others expressing support
for the Writers Guild of America.
Colbert is a member of the Writers Guild of America,
showing pictures of all the writers,
saying, "We can’t do it without them."
So, what happens now as you take to the streets,
as you take to the picket line today across the country?
BRITTANI NICHOLS: Yeah, writers are the backbone
of this industry. Nothing gets made without us.
And I think that the studios will be in
for quite a rude surprise when they realize
that though they do not value us or our contributions,
they do not have a product without us.
We will be at the studios protesting —
or, not protesting — picketing
and, you know, joining each other in solidarity
so that we can all go through this as a guild.
We are committed to making sure that all of our writers,
you know, make it to the other side of this,
because we know there will be an other side,
because we know we’re going to win.
There is no industry without writers.
We are the only generative people in this industry.
Everything else is, you know, based on what is on that page.
And if we’re not putting anything on that page,
there is nothing that anyone else can do.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the shows that will be affected,
or is it everything across the board?
And how does this affect the later season,
which, of course, is going to put
a lot of pressure on the producers,
the people who are demanding these shows?
And what happened with deadlines?
Did they move them up to get shows written before the strike?
BRITTANI NICHOLS: That was up to each individual writer,
how much they were going to deal with people
looking to have the materials turned in by yesterday.
I know a lot of people wanted to turn their stuff in,
because then, you know, if you complete your assignment,
then they have to pay you. Even though we’ll be on strike,
you will have completed your contract.
So there was a lot of pressure on writers.
And, you know, that shows exactly what our labor is worth.
When we withhold our labor, people panic.
People were scared that there wasn’t going to be anything
in the pipeline to go out and create, and that’s true.
We are going to continue to withhold our labor,
and that means everything from not taking meetings
to not putting anything in that pipeline
to not showing up for work.
And that means that shows might get delayed.
Abbott Elementary was supposed to go back
to the room this week.
We are a show that writes while we air.
And so, if this strike goes on
for a significant period of time,
our show will not come out on time.
And that could change the amount of episodes,
which people, I’m sure, will be very upset about.
It could change the air date.
It could change a lot of different things,
because there just will not be things going into that pipeline,
there will not be us participating in anything
that will bring profit to this industry,
and that is going to cause a disruption.
That’s what we’re counting on.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the 2007 strike,
2007-2008, went on for a hundred days.
What did you gain from that strike?
What did you accomplish?
BRITTANI NICHOLS: So, I was not part of that strike.
I was, I think, still a teenager at that point.
But one of the things that we gained
was domain over the internet.
That’s when all of these streaming services
were first popping up,
and, you know, YouTube was a thing.
And what the studios were saying was that you
all should not have any payment for anything that goes online.
So, you know, we’re used to them saying
that we should not have access to our fair cut of the pie,
because they’ve done it every three years
for the entirety of the existence of our union.
And if we had not made those gains,
if we had not gone on strike and put our foot down back then,
there wouldn’t be television writers now.
We’ve already seen, you know,
how important it is for us to stand up for ourselves,
because could you imagine all of the streaming shows
that you know and love,
writers not making any money off of those?
That was the future that the studios wanted.
They want to continue to push us down and bully us.
And it’s not even a matter of we don’t want it to happen.
We can’t let it to happen,
or television writers will no longer be a thing.
Television staffs will no longer be a thing,
because no one will be able to afford it.
AMY GOODMAN: And before we go,
if you can talk about your own show,
the amazing Abbott Elementary, about the Philadelphia teachers.
The show’s first season was nominated
for seven primetime Emmys, winning three.
Why it is so important to see shows like yours, Brittani?
BRITTANI NICHOLS: I think that, you know,
right now a lot of workers are feeling really downtrodden.
I mean, I think that, you know,
the issues that we’re facing are rampant all across this country.
And a show like Abbott,
where you’re seeing working-class people
trying to do their best,
it is a show where you can get some form of relief,
some form of release. That’s important.
People want to be able to enjoy the time off
that they have from performing labor.
And we’re lucky enough that our labor
is what allows people to do that.
And we want to get back to doing that.
We want to get back to providing people an outlet,
letting people have something to enjoy
and have something to look forward to.
AMY GOODMAN: Brittani Nichols,
we want to thank you for being with us,
a Los Angeles-based captain
of the Writers Guild of America West
and a writer on Abbott Elementary.
BRITTANI NICHOLS: Thank you for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Coming up, 60 years ago today,
the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama, began.
Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to look back
at an historic protest in Birmingham, Alabama,
60 years ago today.
Beginning May 2nd, 1963, thousands of children
began a week-long series of protests
against segregation in Birmingham.
The campaign came known as the Children’s Crusade.
When the children took to the streets,
the local head of the police, Bull Connor,
used high-pressure fire hoses and dogs to attack the children,
many of whom were arrested.
Images of the police violence was broadcast around the world.
One photograph captured the moment
when a white police officer
allowed a large German shepherd dog
to attack a young Black boy.
The Children’s Crusade began at the 16th Street Baptist Church.
Four months after the protests began,
the Ku Klux Klan bombed the church,
killing four little girls — Addie Mae Collins,
Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair.
In a moment, we’ll be joined by two guests
to talk about the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham,
but first let’s turn to the scholar
and activist Angela Davis, who grew up in Birmingham.
This is Angela speaking in 2013.
ANGELA DAVIS: And how many of us
remember that it was young children —
11, 12, 13, 14 years old, some as young as 9 or 10 —
who faced police dogs and faced high-power water hoses
and went to jail for our sake?
And so, there is deep symbolism in the fact
that these four young girls’ lives
were consumed by that bombing.
It was children who were urging us to imagine a future
that would be a future of equality and justice.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Angela Davis in 2013.
We’re joined now by two guests.
Paul Kix, writer and author of the new book,
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live:
Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America,
he’s joining us from his home in Connecticut.
And in Birmingham, longtime civil rights activist
Janice Kelsey is with us.
She joined the Children’s Crusade
as a 16-year-old in 1963.
She wrote about her experience in her own book,
I Woke Up with My Mind on Freedom.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
Janice Kelsey, let’s begin with you.
It was 60 years ago today.
I’m sure for you it doesn’t seem that long ago.
Talk about what happened.
JANICE KELSEY: I remember, 60 years ago today,
I woke up with my mind on freedom.
I had attended student nonviolent workshops,
and I was prepared, because I finally understood
that it was more than just segregation,
it was inequality.
And Reverend James Bevel empowered us
as youth to do something about it.
And I was willing to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what you did.
Talk about what it meant to take to the streets,
and the police violence in response.
JANICE KELSEY: Well, in the preparation sessions
that were held at 16th Street Baptist Church,
we had seen film of demonstrations in other places,
so I saw people being hit, being called names
and being mistreated for demonstrating.
We were told that if you participate,
some of this may happen to you,
but this is a nonviolent movement,
and you cannot respond,
except to pray or sing a freedom song.
So I went into it knowing
that there may be some level of danger,
but I was so incensed at having been mistreated all these years,
until I was willing to sacrifice whatever was necessary
to take steps to change the environment.
AMY GOODMAN: Just over four months later,
the beginning of that Children’s Crusade,
the 16th Street Baptist Church, was bombed.
Four little girls, four young people,
young women, were killed. One of them was Cynthia Wesley.
You share the last name of Cynthia Wesley, Janice —
Cynthia. Explain what happened.
JANICE KELSEY: Well, on that Sunday morning,
I was at the church where I attended.
And we had a speaker up.
Our pastor interrupted the speaker
and announced that 16th Street Baptist Church had been bombed
and that there were some casualties.
And that meant someone died.
He said a prayer, and he dismissed church.
Well, when we got home, people were calling our home.
I have a large family. There were nine siblings.
And my mom would not allow anyone else to answer the phone.
And I kept on hearing her say, "No, not our family."
Finally, when the news came on, the national news,
they identified the casualties. Cynthia Wesley was one.
I met Cynthia in elementary school
when she was adopted by Claude and Gertrude Wesley,
who were educators and friends of our family
but not related.
I was invited to come to their home for lawn parties.
We went on field trips together.
And Cynthia had just come to my high school.
She was a ninth grader. I was an 11th grader.
And I had not known anyone in my age group to die,
let alone to be killed at church.
I was devastated to hear Cynthia had died.
But there was a connection with the other girls, as well.
Carole Robertson’s father, Alvin Robertson,
was my band teacher in elementary school.
And his wife taught at the same school
where my sister taught, and they were friends.
Denise McNair was 11,
and her father, Chris McNair, was our milkman.
He used to deliver milk and juice to the home.
Addie Collins, I did not know her family,
but she had a sister in the same class
with one of my brothers.
And I was just devastated,
because I thought people were proud of the courage
that we had displayed in the spring of the year.
I didn’t know it made someone so angry
that they would react in such a violent way.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s bring Paul Kix
into this conversation,
who has just published the book today,
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live:
Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America.
Paul, if you can talk about why you wrote this book?
Talk about your interracial family, George Floyd,
and how that connects to what began 60 years ago today.
PAUL KIX: I’ll take the last part first.
I mean, there was — from emancipation in 1863
to 1963, there were no — there was no equality,
no sense of anything. That spring changed everything.
And to have somebody like Janice —
to be able to share this segment
with someone like Janice is just — it gives me goosebumps,
because just behind me you see my twin boys.
I married my wife Sonya in a Jim Crow state of Texas.
We live today on a shaded street
where nobody harasses us for who we are.
That’s because of what Janice just talked about.
It’s the ability to not only,
you know, put your life on the line in the moment,
but to think about the lives ahead,
the people in the future that might benefit
from your actions in Birmingham.
So, my wife Sonya grew up in inner-city Houston,
one neighborhood away from where George Floyd grew up.
She had — her cousins went to the same high school,
Yates High, as George.
Sonya was the same age as George when George was murdered, 46.
And so, that’s a long way to say
that we did not shield our kids from that sort of coverage.
It was the first time they had ever seen
something like that happen, where an innocent
Black man was killed by police officers.
And our twin boys, who are, again, behind me
there in that photo, they were then 9.
They had a lot of questions
about what that meant for America.
There was a — 2020, the latter half of 2020,
was an incredibly difficult time.
The boys would often run from the room in tears
because of what they saw of George Floyd,
because of what they saw — Jacob Blake
was somebody else who was shot, by Kenosha, Wisconsin, cops.
You know, one of my twin boys ran from the room, saying,
"Why do they keep trying to kill us?"
It was a hard time, 2020.
And I settled on a book project
that very quickly became a family project,
which was a way to try to inspire our three kids
about how they might have courage in their own lives.
And that extends back to what I see as the most pivotal period
in the whole of the 20th century,
and that is the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama,
and in particular what happened on May 2nd and on May 3rd
and on May 4th — excuse me — D-Day, Double D-Day,
and through that weekend — the Children’s Crusade.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me turn to Vincent Harding for a moment.
In 2008, I interviewed Vincent Harding,
the pioneering historian, theologian
and civil rights activist.
In 1963, Martin Luther King invited him
to come to Birmingham, Alabama, to help with the campaign.
VINCENT HARDING: King came especially
to our attention there in Birmingham
because there was a whole development
in which many of the protesters were young people,
and in some cases children, who came to play a crucial role
in leading the struggle against segregation,
partly because many of the adults were afraid to,
couldn’t afford to, were worried about what would happen to them
and their livelihoods if they did it.
And the children took the role.
They were arrested, after the dogs and the fire hoses.
They were put in jail.
They were not able, after a while —
SCLC wasn’t able to get all of the bond money
that was needed to get everyone out.
And King, I remember very much,
one Friday afternoon, in his motel room, simply said,
"I don’t know what I can do to get the money
to get these folks out, young and old,
but I do know that what I can do is to go in there with them."
And so, he then led a march that was against the law at the time,
and he was arrested and put into jail.
It was in that context that he took the opportunity
to work on that now-famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
AMY GOODMAN: That was the late Vincent Harding in 2008,
the great historian, scholar and pastor.
He helped write King’s famous antiwar speech,
"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence."
Well, this is Dr. Martin Luther King reading part of his
"Letter from the Birmingham Jail,"
from the documentary King: A Filmed Record.
REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: You deplore the demonstrations
taking place in Birmingham.
But your statement, I am sorry to say,
fails to express a similar concern
for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. …
Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city
in the United States.
Its ugly record of brutality is widely known.
… There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes
and churches in Birmingham
than in any other city in the nation.
These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. …
You may well ask: "Why direct action?
Why sit ins, marches and so forth?
Isn’t negotiation a better path?"
… Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis
and foster such a tension that a community
which has constantly refused to negotiate
is forced to confront the issue. …
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. …
Was not Jesus an extremist for love:
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you,
and persecute you."
… Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice
or for the extension of justice? …
I have no despair about the future.
I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham,
even if our motives are at present misunderstood.
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham
and all over the nation,
because the goal of America is freedom. …
We will win our freedom
because the sacred heritage of our nation
and the eternal will of the Almighty God
are embodied in our echoing demands.
AMY GOODMAN: From the documentary King:
A Filmed Record, Dr. Martin Luther King
reading his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail,"
which he had written just weeks before the Children’s Crusade.
Paul Kix, you talked about D-Day and Double D-Day,
the horrific picture that begins your book,
this famous image from — it was May 3rd, 1963,
of the 14-year-old African American boy,
this German shepherd biting his stomach.
And he is — he has such poise.
He doesn’t seem to be responding, but with dignity.
Talk about D-Day and Double D-Day.
PAUL KIX: It altered everything.
Janice was saying just a moment ago
about Reverend James Bevel.
To go into D-Day and Double D-Day was effectively
because there was no other choice.
Birmingham adults were not going to protest.
They would very likely lose their jobs.
That’s what James Bevel realized.
So, what the children did, we’ve seen those images.
We’ve seen people like Janice being attacked with fire hoses.
But I just want to frame for the audience
what that actually meant.
Those fire hoses were mounted on metal tripods
that, frankly, looked like it was meant for artillery.
It could knock mortar loose from brick.
It could strip bark from a tree
at a distance of more than a hundred feet.
A lot of times kids were hit at less than 50 feet.
Some of the raw footage from that day shows —
from Double D-Day shows just horrific, horrific violence,
kids’ clothes just basically disintegrating on them
as the water hits them, kids backflipped in the air
as the water hits their face or chest, kids writhing in pain
as the Birmingham Fire Department and Birmingham
Police Department keep the water hose right on them,
at a distance of, again, 15 feet.
Sometimes there was a girl — I will never forget this.
There was a girl in Birmingham who was slid down the street
by the power of the fire hose as she is just writhing in pain
and screaming in terror, 50 feet, 60 feet, 70 feet.
The camera crews just watched her pass.
Then there were the German shepherds, like Walter Gadsden,
the boy you referenced a moment ago.
The violence was so grotesque
that there were literally war photographers
who had been there,
who had seen battle in World War II,
and they said this was as bad as anything they had ever seen.
There was a New York Times reporter by the name of R. W.
Apple, who would later be famed,
and he said he had never, across all of his years,
in all of numerous war zones,
he had never seen anything like the images out of Double D-Day,
May 3rd, 1963.
He had never seen that level of violence
anywhere else in his life.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break.
PAUL KIX: And so, that is what happened on that day.
The courage that those kids showed that day,
the faith that they showed,
that these images would actually alter America, again,
it led me to write this book,
because I believe so fiercely that those 10 weeks,
that week in particular,
the week that we’re in right now,
altered America forever, and for the better.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Paul Kix,
author of You Have to Be Prepared to Die
Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham
That Changed America, and Janice Kelsey,
longtime civil rights activist.
She was 16 when she participated in the Children’s Crusade.
We’re going to break, then coming back
to talk more about this pivotal moment in history.
Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Alabama" by John Coltrane,
recorded in 1963 after the September bombing
of the 16th Street Baptist Church
that killed four little girls.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org,
The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
In 2013, I interviewed Sarah Collins Rudolph,
who survived the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church
in Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963.
She was 12 years old, hit with shards of glass,
lost an eye, was hospitalized for months.
Her older sister, Addie Mae Collins,
who was 14, died in the blast.
Sarah Collins Rudolph described what happened.
SARAH COLLINS RUDOLPH: Yes.
I was in the ladies’ lounge when the bomb went off.
You know, I remember Cynthia,
Denise and Carole walking inside the lounge area
and went in where the stalls was.
So when they came out,
Denise passed by Addie and asked my sister
to tie the sash on her dress.
And I was across from them at the sink.
And when Denise asked her to tie the sash,
and I was looking at her when she began to tie it,
and then all of a sudden, boom!
I never did see her finish it, finish tying it.
So, all I could do was say, call out, "Jesus!"
because I didn’t know what that loud sound was.
And then I called my sister, "Addie! Addie! Addie!"
And she didn’t answer me. So, I thought that they had —
the girls had ran on the other side of the church
where the Sunday school area was.
But all of a sudden I heard a voice outside saying,
"Somebody bombed the 16th Street church!"
And it was so clear to me,
as though that this person was right there,
but they was outside where the crater was,
a bomb in the church — where it bombed the hole there.
And all the debris came rushing in,
and I was hit in my face with glass
and also in my — both eyes.
Well, when the man came in — his name’s Samuel Rutledge
— he came in and picked me up
and carried me out of the crater,
and the ambulance was out there waiting.
And they rushed me to Hillman Hospital,
which they changed the name. It’s now UAB Hospital. …
So they rushed me on up to the operating room,
and they operated on both of my eyes
and took the glass from out of my face.
And I had glass in my chest and stomach.
So they operated on me.
And when I went back to the room —
and I stayed there in the hospital
for about two-and-a-half months.
But at that time, when they took the bandages off my eyes,
the doctor asked me what do I see out of my right eye.
I told him I couldn’t see anything out of my right eye.
And when he took it off my left eye,
all I could see was just a little light.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, you lost your sister,
as well, Addie Mae Collins, your older sister.
You were 12. She was 14.
Did you feel you could not find a safe place?
I mean, after all, you were bombed in a church,
the place you went for sanctuary.
SARAH COLLINS RUDOLPH: Yes, you would think
that going to church is really a safe place,
but it wasn’t.
You know, somebody that would put a bomb in a church
and kill four innocent girls,
you know, that’s just the work of the devil,
because that shouldn’t never have happened.
These girls was young,
and we was waiting that day for a youth service.
But by the bomb going off,
we didn’t get a chance to attend youth service.
AMY GOODMAN: That graphic description of the bombing
that happened four months —
a little more than four months after the Children’s Crusade.
We are continuing with Janice Kelsey,
whose name was similar to Cynthia Wesley,
one of the four girls who was killed,
and so people called in condolences to Janice’s family,
thinking maybe it was her.
But she was active in the Children’s Crusade
at the age of 16 in Birmingham, Alabama.
And we’re joined by Paul Kix, author of
You Have to Be Prepared to Die,
that chronicles this pivotal moment in U.S. history.
Janice Kelsey, after the protests —
and you were arrested in this period 60 years ago?
JANICE KELSEY: Sixty years ago today,
I was arrested for parading without a permit.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever get slammed by those water hoses,
or were you arrested before?
JANICE KELSEY: I was arrested
before the water hoses and the dogs.
AMY GOODMAN: To show, I think,
how powerful your protest was, maybe if you could talk about
those who criticized King and the other leaders,
saying, "You shouldn’t put children on the frontline"?
I think that was Malcolm X who said,
"Real men don’t put their children on the firing line."
Robert Kennedy also criticized this strategy.
Your response to them?
JANICE KELSEY: Well, we didn’t have any other choice.
If our parents had protested, they could have lost their jobs.
They would have gone to jail.
There was no one to take care of us.
But as Bevel pointed out to us,
we really didn’t have anything to lose.
We were getting a second-class education.
We had all kinds of inequities put on us.
And if we wanted that to change,
we were going to be the change agents.
We didn’t have anything to lose.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Kix,
if you could talk about a secret meeting
that was held that included James Bevel and Dr. King,
and then the unbelievable fundraiser
that was held in Harry Belafonte’s apartment —
who we just lost at the age of 96 —
and what that meant for this movement?
PAUL KIX: So, in January of 1963,
the SCLC had a secret meeting in Dorchester, Georgia.
And they didn’t even invite all of the executive directors.
Martin Luther King Jr.
didn’t even invite his own father to this meeting,
because they wanted to discuss
what they called the most dangerous idea
in the civil rights movement, and that was:
Should we go to Birmingham?
And it was a huge risk, because the SCLC was broke.
The SCLC had been criticized for years
for ineffective leadership. The SCLC, just one year prior,
had staged a massive and absolutely abysmal failure
of a campaign in Albany, Georgia.
The SCLC was sneered at by other civil rights groups
at the same time,
by the same token that they were sneered at by the press,
be it Northern press or Southern press.
And so, this campaign, they decided,
we are — in that secret meeting in Dorchester, they thought,
"Well, we are either going to break segregation in Birmingham,
or we are going to be broken by it."
There was a real concern
that the SCLC would die as a result of this.
And in fact, there was a real concern
that a lot of SCL members would actually die in Birmingham
just for taking part.
King even delivered mock eulogies in Birming —
excuse me, in Dorchester, in preparation
for what they thought Birmingham would be like.
And then, to — you asked, the other half of this
is Harry Belafonte, and he played —
AMY GOODMAN: And so, that was Bevel,
Shuttlesworth, King and Abernathy
who had this secret meeting.
PAUL KIX: There were some —
the accounts vary as to how many there were.
It is somewhere between 11 and 15 people.
There were a few other people there, as well.
But, yes, there was a core group of people there.
It was Fred Shuttlesworth. Wyatt Walker was there.
James Bevel was there. King was there.
Those are the four people that ended up
being the four protagonists in my book.
And then, a secondary character,
and hugely influential throughout the entire campaign,
was Harry Belafonte.
And if we flash forward a copy of months —
this secret meeting happens in January of 1963.
In late March of 1963, just days before Project Confrontation,
as it was known, the Birmingham campaign —
that was a secret name for it, Project Confrontation.
Just days before that campaign launched,
there was the just as large gamble
as to how exactly they were going to try to finance it.
And so they go to Harry Belafonte’s
apartment in New York.
And while they are there, Fred Shuttlesworth,
who was kind of a regionally known civil rights activist —
Janice would know who he was —
but he was a Birmingham pastor who was absolutely fearless.
And he wowed the donors there that night,
with just basically stories of his courage
and bravery and faith.
And at the end of his speech, he said,
"You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live."
And that was the line that just amazed the donors.
And that night in Belafonte’s apartment,
they raised $475,000 for the Birmingham campaign,
which is akin, I think, today —
I don’t have the calculator in front of me,
but something like $4 million in modern currency.
And it was the largest-ever — it was the largest-ever
fundraiser in the SCLC’s history,
and that was the money that they used,
orchestrated almost entirely by Harry Belafonte,
to then go into Birmingham.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Janice Kelsey,
we just have a minute,
but I wanted to end with your voice.
Sixty years ago today,
you were arrested in the Children’s Crusade.
Your thoughts at this moment and message
about what’s happening today?
JANICE KELSEY: It’s very discouraging and frightening
to see leaders in legislatures and governors
who are trying to push back on the gains
that were made due to the tremendous sacrifices
that were made by young people 60 years ago,
not just people like me who went to jail,
but people like the four girls who were killed at church,
and the four young men who were killed in the communities
that same Sunday.
A lot of blood sacrifice went forth in order for us
to gain the measures that were gained.
And it is frightening to see the big push
by people in leadership positions
to return to the way we were.
And I’m hoping and praying that our young people
will step up again and say, "No, we are not going back."
AMY GOODMAN: Janice Kelsey —
JANICE KELSEY: That’s what those two legislators did.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you so much for being with us,
longtime civil rights activist in Birmingham, Alabama.
And Paul Kix, You Have to Be Prepared to Die, his new book.
Thank you.