The Children's Crusade: When school-aged children in Birmingham catalyzed the March on Washington

A sculpture dedicated to the Foot Soldiers of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement in Kelly Ingram Park, in Birmingham, Alabama. (Lisa Rayam/WABE)

It’s been 60 years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Nearly 300,000 people flocked to the Lincoln Memorial on a hot August day to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.

An event takes place on Saturday in Washington to commemorate the ideals and events that fueled that 1963 demonstration. One of those events was the Birmingham Children’s Crusade that took place a few months prior.

A small group of Atlanta journalists were invited on a Birmingham bus tour to learn about the link between the Children’s Crusade and the March on Washington. WABE’s “Morning Edition” reports on how those children helped set the tone for the march.

Note: The bus tour was organized by CNN and the National Association of Black Journalists as part of its National Convention held in Birmingham earlier this month.

Lily Oppenheimer contributed to this report.