Civil Rights Protesters Offered Pardon for 1963 Birmingham Arrests

On May 2^nd, 1963, over a thousand black children in Birmingham, Alabama took part in a nonviolent protest against racial segregation now known as the “Children’s Crusade.”  The children skipped school that day and marched together, two-by-two, singing songs of freedom.  The police confronted the children wielding clubs and fire houses, and set dogs on them.  Hundreds of children were arrested, many taken to jail in school buses.  Frank James recounts this story in his National Public Radio blog post, noting that many of the children from the Children’s Crusade, now in their 50s and 60s, still have arrest records from having participated in the protests.  Forty-six years later, the mayor of Birmingham is offering to expunge their records as well as the records of anyone else arrested for nonviolent protests.  According to the Associated Press, Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford “expects many people to refuse to request certificates of pardon because they consider their arrest records to be a badge of courage.”