Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 16th Street Baptist Church, the University of Illinois Center for Children’s Books, Birmingham Public Library, the Hoover Public Library, The Morgan Project, Make it Happen Children’s Theater, Sloss Furnaces, the Footsoldiers Headquarters, the National Park Foundation, The Ballard House Project, and many more are collaborating on an event for 4th-8th grade students on Thursday September 14, 2023 centered around the children’s book The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. Christopher Paul Curtis, the book’s author, will address students from the sanctuary of 16th Street Baptist Church at 9am to start the day. 

The event will bring the book alive, with many hands-on, curriculum-based activities. For example, students will listen to music of the 1960s, play jacks and hop scotch, read poetry by Langston Hughes, and map out the route that the Watsons took from Flint, Michigan to Birmingham, Alabama. The hands-on event will run from 9am until noon. Afterwards, middle school students have the option to attend a free screening of the Spike Lee film, 4 Little Girls, at the Lyric Theater through the efforts of The Morgan Project. This program is funded in part with a grant provided by the Alabama Humanities Alliance through the program efforts of 16th Street Baptist Church.

Free transportation will be provided to Title I schools through a National Park Foundation grant. Interested teachers are asked to contact Kathryn Gardiner at Kathryn_Gardiner@nps.gov, text/call at 205-568-3963, and/or register on-line at: Field Trip Registration Form 2023-2024 (google.com)

For more information about the event, please contact Dr. Samantha Elliott Briggs at sbriggs@bcri.org.