Early Sparks
(1900s-1940s)
(1900s-1940s)
In 1903, this event exposed child labor abuses when 10,000 young textile workers went on strike for better pay and shorter hours.
What is the March of the Mill Children?
Two 16-year-olds led a walkout from Robert Russa Moton High School to protest unequal conditions in Farmville, Virginia.
Who are Barbara Johns and John Arthur Stokes?
Mary Beth and John Tinker wore black armbands to school to protest this war.
What is the Vietnam War?
Massive 2006 protests opposed harsh immigration laws and included 40,000 students walking out in this city.
What is Los Angeles?
She was only 13 when she helped define student free speech in Tinker v. Des Moines.
Who is Mary Beth Tinker?
In 1940, this group of young Black organizers fought for voting rights by protesting the poll tax across the South.
What is the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC)?
This 1957 event tested the Brown v. Board of Education decision when nine Black students integrated Central High.
What is the Little Rock Nine?
The Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines that students do not “shed their rights” where?
Where are public schools?
The proposed DREAM Act would have provided what for undocumented youth?
What is a pathway to legal status?
This young leader’s 1951 school protest became part of the Brown v. Board case.
Who is Barbara Johns?
These 400 juvenile workers marched from Pennsylvania coal mines to Theodore Roosevelt’s home in protest of child labor.
Who were the juvenile coal miners from the March of the Mill Children?
In 1960, four Black college students refused to leave a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in this city.
What is Greensboro, North Carolina?
The 1968 East Los Angeles “Blowouts” protested discrimination against this group of students.
Who are Mexican-American students?
After Trayvon Martin’s death, this movement was founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi.
What is Black Lives Matter?
These four students started the sit-in movement in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Who are Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond?
SNYC’s “National Anti-Poll Tax Week” raised awareness about this major barrier preventing Black Southerners from voting.
What is the poll tax?
Inspired by Greensboro, students in this city staged a 3-month sit-in campaign that led to local desegregation.
What is the Nashville Sit-In Movement?
The slogan “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” led to this constitutional change.
What is the 26th Amendment?
This youth-led group fights for a Green New Deal and against fossil fuel influence.
What is the Sunrise Movement?
This slogan, “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” was championed by activists demanding this reform.
What is lowering the voting age to 18?
The SNYC’s work in cities like Durham and Raleigh showed early examples of youth building power through this civic action.
What is voting and labor organizing?
Thousands of students marched from a Birmingham church in 1963, facing police dogs and fire hoses.
What is the Children’s Crusade?
The East L.A. Walkouts were organized by the EICC, which stood for what?
What is the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee?
In 2018, students from this Florida high school launched the March For Our Lives campaign.
What is Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland)?
These three women are credited with launching one of the most influential racial justice movements of our time.
Who are Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi?