Why I March With My Children
Bringing my 13- and 15-year-olds to a Birmingham march was absolutely the right thing to do
With masks covering our faces, my daughters and I marched for justice in downtown Birmingham.
On Juneteenth.
During a pandemic.
Because my daughters need to know how to stand up for others and for themselves.
Call: Black Lives
Response: Matter!
I signed up for a lifetime of discussions about race when I walked down the aisle in 2001 and married my husband, Ken, who is White. We knew race would be a part of our story, especially after our daughters were born. We both have faced questions about their racial identity, and our daughters have been called Hispanic, Asian, and Polynesian. My daughters identify as mixed, but they know society views them as Black.
The event, called the Alabama Rally Against Injustice, was surrounded by civil rights history. It began in Kelly Ingram Park, the same park where dogs and fire hoses confronted Black children in 1963. The park sits in the shadow of the 16th Street Baptist Church, where a bomb killed four little girls. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, which tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement in the city, is across the…