The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice by Michael G. Long

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice by Michael Long From the March on Washington to March for Our Lives to Black Lives Matter, the powerful stories of kid-led protest in America.   Kids have always been activists. They have even launched movements. Long before they could vote, kids have spoken up, walked out, gone on strike, and marched for racial justice, climate protection, gun control, world peace, and more.  Kids on the March tells the stories of these protests, from the March of the Mill Children, who walked out of factories in 1903 for a shorter work week, to 1951’s Strike for a Better School, which helped build the case for Brown v. Board of Education, to the twenty-first century’s most iconic movements, including March for Our Lives, the Climate Strike, and the recent Black Lives Matter protests reshaping our nation.   Powerfully told and inspiring, Kids on the March shows how standing up, speaking out, and marching for what you believe in can advance the causes of justice, and that no one is too small or too young to make a difference. About Michael G. Long Michael G. Long ([e-mail]) has a Ph.D. from Emory University and is the author or editor of numerous books on nonviolent protest, civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, politics, and religion. He's currently working on picture books and books for young readers, with subjects ranging from civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to the 1917 Silent Protest Parade to nonviolent protests led by kids. Long's coauthored biography of transgender rights pioneer Phyllis Frye is under contract. Long's first YA nonfiction biography--a coauthored book titled Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington (City Lights Books)--earned starred reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the School Library Journal. The Bank Street Center, Kirkus, and SLJ selected Troublemaker as a best book of the year. Long has also written on civil rights and protest for the Los Angeles Times, The Undefeated (ESPN), the Progressive, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Daily News, the Afro, USA Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Huffington Post. His work has been featured in or on MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, USA Today, The Root, The Nation, The Undefeated (ESPN), Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Salon, CNN, Book Forum, Ebony/Jet, and many other places. Long has spoken at City Lights Bookstore, Fenway Park, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Library of Congress, the National Museum of American History, the National Archives, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the City Club of San Diego, the Schomberg Center of the New York Public Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the New-York Historical Society, among other places, and he has appeared on PBS, C-Span, and National Public Radio. Long lives in Lower Allen Township (PA) with Karin, Nate, and their Boston terrier, George Abner. His older son Jack is a firefighter.

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Anyway, guys, we have, of course, the most excellent author on the show and the most amazing book on the show. So this is really going to blow you away and really get you going. This book just came out yesterday. It is hot, steaming off the presses. In fact, when our author showed up today, he had gloves on because he couldn't touch the books. They were so hot off the presses.

He has written the seminal book, A Kid's on the March, 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, protesting and fighting for justice just out yesterday dr michael g long and i'll give you some rundown on him he is the author and editor of numerous books on civil rights lgbtq rights protest movements and politics including 42 today jack Jackie Robinson's Life and Legacy, Troublemaker for Justice, Bayard Rustin, The Man Behind the March in Washington, We the Resistance, documenting the history of nonviolent protests in the United States,

and more. Kids on the March is his first book for young readers. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, ESPN's The Undefeated, and other publications. readers he has also written for the los angeles times the chicago tribune usa today espn's the undefeated and other publications he's a popular speaker and has given talks at the cia you may have heard of it the library of congress you may have also heard it and the national constitution center and the national museum of american history archives the national archives fenway park the negro league's baseball museum among other places

he lives with his spouse karen and their two sons jackson and nate in camp hill pennsylvania he loves eating dinner with his family pretending to be a professional gardener trying to coax bluebirds to live in his backyard and of course he tells cool stories about kid protesters he also likes holding hands seeing sunsets and pina coladas, and tunes by a cave. Anyway, welcome to the show, Michael. How are you? I'm doing fine, Chris. That's quite the introduction. Let me just compliment you on sounding like a mezzo-soprano as well. We try and give it all the energy, but there you go. Welcome to the show, my friend. Congratulations on your new book that you've got out. Give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs and order up this wonderful book.

Sure. You can find the book at Algonquin Books for Young Readers. That's the publisher of the book. Thanks to them for publishing the title. And you can find me on Facebook at Michael Long. So please feel free to friend me. And you can find my profile at major booksellers online including amazon there you go order of the book just out today kids on the march and of course you can uh go to the amazon page and see all of his other stuff so out of all these books that you're writing what motivates you to pick this one michael and write it yeah so as you notice i've done some

work adult work on non-violent protests in u US history. And when I was going through that research and looking at the historical photos, by the way, that's some of my favorite parts of research, just looking at the old photos, I would often see kids in the photos. It would be on the left or the bottom right or the upper right-hand corner or the upper left-hand corner. They were always marginalized in the photos. And it got me really thinking, who are these kids? What are they doing there? What are their stories? And so that's part of the inspiration. Another part of the inspiration is that when I was a kid, I was a victim of a grave injustice. And several of us got together and we decided to go talk with adults. And we did.

And they really didn't listen to us. And they really didn't do anything about what we told them. In fact, they rallied around the perpetrator in some ways. And that still stinks. And it still sits with me in a really bad way. So I've always been inclined to amplify the voices of kids who have been victims of injustice and kids who have been on the margins. What I like about this and what's also inspired me is that these are kids who have really straightened their backbone through the years and who have stood up and shouted out. And that's so important especially for kids yeah a large time a lot of times kids the parents dismiss kids adults kids all the good stuff this just in adults suck no i'm just kidding kids live in a wonderment of innocence and they see everything for what it is

and as adults we get a little tainted on that stuff i noticed something about this book on the age group is there a targeted group of people you're looking to reach with this book? Yeah, I think we're shooting for kids age 10 to 14. Having said that, I think older kids would appreciate it as well and find a lot of different tactics in there. I love going back through the stories myself and becoming inspired as I read them. So give us an overview arc of the book, and then we'll start breaking it down. Does it span a period of time? Is it to a specific period of time? Give us a layout of that. So the book looks at protests that kids have been involved in.

Sometimes they lead the protest. Sometimes they're just a key part of the protest. And sometimes they're in the margins of the protest. But the book is divided into two parts, 20th century and the 21st century. It's pretty convenient. It starts in 1903 with the March of the Mill Children in Philadelphia. And this was led by the famous Mother Jones. And these were textile kids who worked in textile factories faced awful conditions and at the urging of Mother Jones they decided to march from their mills in Philadelphia to President

Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York at his luxurious home there pleading for work days that weren't as long for better working conditions and so forth, and Roosevelt refused to see them. So the book starts with that story, and it goes up to the George Floyd protests of 2020 and 2021, especially a protest led by some kids in Berkeley, California. So it has about 120 years span. And the book, in short, really tells narratives from these different protests. I don't really lay out the facts, but I try to tell compelling stories about the various kids in their protests, why they protested, how they protested, and then whether they succeeded or failed, or whether they succeeded in the short term than won in the long term. And I think you may have inferred this early on. Do you mean this is a historical book? Not only to tell these stories, educate people,

share the stories and amplify the message, as you mentioned earlier, but I think you implied maybe to give a manual to future generations of children, kids, teenagers that want to speak out. Yeah, so the book is nonfiction history. It's appropriate for courses in history or for anybody interested in history, especially the history of protests. But at the back of the book, we also include some tips for kids who are hoping to protest, whether they want to be just a regular organizer or a leader or even a follower. We include tips at the back of the book. Also, in the very stories of the book, kids can pull out the types of protests that they're interested in. So the book looks at marches, rallies, boycotts, visits with legislators, petitions, and so forth and so on. There are lots of different protest. Now, I don't cover all of the ones. There's this famous nonviolent theorist who's no longer with us. His name is Gene Sharp, and he's really the person in nonviolent protests.

And he developed a list of 192 tactics for us to adopt when facing an injustice. I don't deal with all those tactics, but there are some major ones that I cover in the book. I do some of those tactics when the wife gets angry at me. It's not violent. It doesn't work. I still end up on the couch. It's my sixth wife. It's probably going to end up divorce soon. I'm just kidding. So this is pretty interesting. So what were some of the stories that really stuck out to you? Share with us a couple of different stories that really were maybe moving for you. I think one of the more inspiring stories for me happened in 1951. There was this young woman, she was a high school student named Barbara Johns,

and she was at Robert Moden High School in Farmville, Virginia. It was an all-Black school. It was segregated from the Farmville High School, which was attended by whites. And so this is a racially segregated county, racially segregated school whites. And so this is a racially segregated county, racially segregated school district. And at Barbra's school, the old black school, there were about 400 kids, close to 500. The school itself was built for about 200, 250. So they were bursting at the seams. The school board decides, okay, we'll build some extra buildings. They put up, no kidding, tar paper shacks. And these shacks,

there are pot-bellied stoves. So you can imagine the dust and filth in the rooms. Is that a fire hazard too? Yeah. Tar paper and fire. Yeah. And it's filthy. And the tar paper shacks

leak. And the heating stinks. barbara johnson's had enough of this then to top it off some of her friends are killed in an accident and then to top that off one day she misses the black school bus the school bus for the black kids and she's waiting she's hoping to get a ride and the beautiful white school bus goes by with all the white kids, and the bus refuses to stop. Barbara has had enough. She goes to school, and she talks with a trusted teacher and with her fellow students, her peers, and she decides she's going to have a strike. 1951, Farmville, Virginia. Barbara Johns decides to have a strike

of black kids. They walk out of the school. They get rid of the principal in the meantime. They send him on an errand and he's clueless. They walk out of the school. They have this strike. It's absolutely amazing. The most interesting thing about the story is

not only that and the courage they showed in this violent white racist community but also the fact that they were willing to bet and here's what they did chris is this story getting too long no i'm loving it it's a detail the kids call them the deets in the beginning the beginning, Barbara Johns was calling for a better school, which made sense to her, right? But she's willing to bend because the NAACP gets involved. She reached out to them, actually, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

And at this point, the head of the NAACP legal team is Thurgood Marshall. Oh, there we go. Thurgood Marshall says, yeah, we'll get involved in the case, but only if we can fight for an integrated school. So Barbara John says, hmm, this sounds a lot better to me. So she's flexible, and the kids are too, but they're not sure because they love their school. They got school pride.

But they eventually are flexible enough to join this NAACP campaign, and the case becomes part of the Brown v. Board of Education. Wow. Wow. It's started on May 17, 1954. That's a mic drop right there. Wow. Wow. It was started on May 17, 1934. Barbara Johns and her fellow peers at Moton High School win. Wow.

That is huge. Isn't it? Freaking huge. That's like history, historic, epic. Yeah, that's awesome. Wow. That's an epic story. I never even knew that was a proponent of that.

That's a great story. Yeah. The worst part about it, though, is that the kids really faced a lot of blowback. Their parents lost jobs. And Barbara Johns' life was threatened. And the KKK put up a cross at Robert Mooden High School and lit it. The blowback was amazing. And then when the case came down, Barbara Johns' home mysteriously burned to the ground.

So there was a lot of blowback in that area. Yeah. We recently had Tim Shriver on, the nephew of Bobby Kennedy. He's one of those people that I really admired. And of course, I've always, in times where I've dealt with bullies or times where I've been down, I've always focused on that standing up against oppression and resistance. And that's what these kids are doing. They're standing up. And maybe they don't have as much to lose in their appearance,

but look what difference they made historically over the last 70, 80 years. I'm glad you mentioned Bobby Kennedy. He actually makes an appearance in the book. Oh, does he? Yeah. So in 1968 in East Los Angeles, Chicano kids faced some really horrible situations there, too. The graduation rate was in the 30 percentile for some of these schools. It was awful.

And the teachers made fun of the kids, and they would say things like dirty Mexicans. And there's this one case where a student, Paula Cristostomo, remembers that a teacher said to her, you better pay attention because you're going to be cooking and cleaning our houses someday. Pay attention in this home ec class. And another teacher said that, Paula, you and your friends are going to be pregnant. I'm not quite sure why you're here. So the conditions were horrible in East Los Angeles, and the kids decide to walk out. They staged this huge walkout and they demand a better education. They demand students,

they demand teachers, excuse me, who are conversant in their culture, conversant in Spanish language, and their list went on. And Bobby Kennedy visited them during the height of that walkout and gave them his support. My gosh, they were over the moon seeing Bobby Kennedy, who at the time was running for president

in 1968 in Los Angeles. But it's a great story. And it took them a while. But one of the best things that came out of that walkout is that UCLA started admitting a lot of Hispanic Chicano students. And so did the rest of the California State College and University system. There you go. There you go. Awesome

story. Let's do that teaser thing I was telling you about pre-show. Is there a teaser in the book you want to tease that people should do people like an added extra reason to pick up this book? Yeah, there's this case in 2016 of kids from Dakota, North Dakota, and they're getting together because there's a Dakota Access Pipeline that's running near their reservation, where the plan is for the construction of the pipeline to run near their reservation and under the river that is a water source for their reservation, right? So this is part of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest that's going on in 2016.

Becomes a big occupation movement, right? So a lot of Native Americans and their allies descend on North Dakota and on the Sioux Reservation there and occupy the land. It's a beautiful story. Kids play a major role in this protest. Now, how do they do it is the question. Native American adults who have great esteem in the Native American culture, especially the elderly. Oh, my gosh. And so the kids are constantly looking up to the elderly and then beyond that to the ancestors for instruction and inspiration. But they get the bright idea that they can make a huge difference.

They do. And they do it by going from a reservation, a Sioux reservation in North Dakota to Washington, D.C. The question is, and here's the teaser, how do they get there? And what kind of difference do they make? I'll tell you this. It has to do with the Native American tradition of sending messages from one tribe to another. Kids pick up that tradition and carry it on. It's a really beautiful story. So it's probably the iPhone text messages, right?

That's how the kids are all these days. So pick up the book, order it up on Amazon or your local bookstore because you'd want to get on some of these teasers. You want to get in and find out what that's about. I think that's a really cool story. I'm really interested in it. I was interested before, but now I love teasers. I love teasers because you're like, I got to get the rest of it. It's kind of like

drama. When I call some of my friends and I go, hey, I got some drama. They're like, what do you got? And then you give them a teaser and then you go, I'll call you later. I'll give you the whole story. And they're like, no. So I always love teasers. And we do that during the show. I like to say, this is off the record.

There you go. It's off the record. But if you buy the book, you get it on the record. The biggest, the interesting thing about children is they have that innocence. They have that outlook on life where they see things as they really are. As adults, we tend to get some of the different aspects of money. And I don't want to shake the boat because I might lose my job or my house. And kids are like, I don't care. I'll do what I want. But was there an aspect of bravery that you looked at?

Sure. There's this great story from 1963. I'm going to tie this together with your earlier comments about adults being busy and so forth and having outside obligations and kids not having them as much. In 1963, Dr. King and his colleagues were in Birmingham, Alabama for Project C. It's called Project Confrontation. And they were trying to desegregate the city of Birmingham, Alabama. And Dr. King went to jail, wrote the letter from Birmingham jail, and the movement was starting to get flat, and they were having trouble getting adults for the movement. And so some of King's colleagues, James Bevel especially, said, why don't we think about getting some kids together? And this was controversial, because Birmingham was a dangerous place, and Dr. King hesitated.

But Bevel's point was that kids don't have the obligations that adults have they don't have the type of responsibilities that pull them in so many different directions as adults have and they're eager about what we've been doing we know that and so Dr. King agreed and the kids came out in full force and on the first day they joined the protests, over 900 of them went to jail. Oh, wow. To jail? To jail. On the second day, over a thousand went to jail. It gets worse. The safety, the police safety commissioner there was a guy named Bull Connor. And he looked as if he, as his name sounds, a big white bullish guy. And the kids were protesting at a

nearby public park. And Will Connor decides that he's going to snick some snarling German shepherds on these kids. And not only does he do that through his police force, but he instructs the firefighters to turn supercharged hoses on these kids as well. It's incredible. The images of dogs lunging at kids' throats and their midsections and the images of kids being blown off their feet, being swept off their feet, fired off their feet by these supercharged hoses go around the world. And Kennedy finally starts to freak out. Finally. And on June 11, 1963, not long after that protest, he goes on television and asks for new civil rights legislation.

And when he does so, he commends the bravery of those who are involved in the civil rights movement in Birmingham. But what I want to emphasize is not only that, but also the bravery of these kids to stand there and to deal with these dogs and the fire hoses. And you know what? After that happened, hundreds more came out again. And the police just got them together, took them to jail, took them to detention centers. They even took them to the local fairgrounds and threw them in the pig pens. The kids kept coming out. Amazing story. God bless those kids because that's the thing, man, as a mass and they're fighting for their future and yeah those it's always sad to me as

we have historians on like yourself and we talk about the history social injustice in this country and stuff we talk about how uh a lot of these things took in it's sad to me that it takes something this tragic this horrific this ugly marker on the time of history the suffrage the death of people that we have to go through seminal moments where we go, oh yeah, what we're doing there is bad. Yeah, we should stop that. And, but those pictures were the, were almost a linchpin for creating civil rights legislation and the world was aghast and they saw those pictures and went, what the hell? And they were pictures of kids. I want to run, if I may, with the comment you just made.

And in 2018, on February 14th, Valentine's Day, 2018, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, faced a horrific shooting, as we all know. And in response to that, the kids in that school really bound together, and they realized that the adults, we adults, had failed them. And they're right about that. And so they got together, and they decided eventually to hold not only local events like a candlelight vigil and a local protest rally, but they decided to take their disappointment with adults to the adults in Washington, D.C. and held this huge March for

Our Lives rally. It was a history making in terms of the leadership of young kids and then the impact and the massive amounts of people who turned out, not only in Washington, D.C., but across the world as well. And nothing happened in Washington, D.C., in response to that. Now, what happened with the kids after that march is that they stayed together, and they continued to fight for legislation in various states. And that march is that they stayed together and they continued to fight for legislation in various states. And that march and that movement led to more legislative reform in terms of gun control legislation than anything else, which is awesome, right? Now, here we are, what, one or two days after this another horrific shooting in Boulder, Colorado, where the shooter used a gun, the type of which was targeted by the kids in the March for Our Lives.

And that is an automatic rifle. The kids in Parkland thought that a rifle like that took out way too many, way too fast. And that if you banned that, there wouldn't have been the awful destruction that they had faced on February 14th, Valentine's Day in 2018. And here we are. There you go. Adults continue to fail those kids, the kids from Newton, right? The Newtown, the kids from Columbine and so many others. Yeah.

And you have the kids from the Parkland school on your cover of your book. It was extraordinary because we'd gone through just, it was a weekly, almost daily thing there for a while of school shootings. And suddenly the Parkland shooting happens and it's horrific. And the kids just rise up and it was powerful. It was inspiring. It was, it was like, we've had enough. And they were really good at organizing these kids. I wonder how much of an effect or if it's even traceable that they had to the filing of bankruptcy. Shining a light more on the NRA, what they were up to, where their funding resources were, and maybe possibly bringing them down with the bankruptcy. I don't know if there's a direct line there, but they definitely must have had something. That's a great point, Chris. I do think there's a direct line there. But you're right. It's tough to line up the evidence to make that.

But I imagine a lot of, a lot of adults, I know a lot of people who are NRA fans that went, yeah, it's probably, they probably called it. It's probably, and we probably need to really start looking at it. And I love guns and I support guns, but maybe it's really time to take another look at it. And some people pulled funding from the NRA and took a look at it. But the bravery of these kids is astounding in how they stand up and how they look.

They usually have nothing to lose, but I think a lot of times probably the stories in your book, a lot of these children, they're fighting for their future. They recognize that even though they're children, that they're going to have to move into this world, live in it, try and raise a family, earn money, do jobs and stuff. And they realize they don't want to, this isn't a world they want to join. So they better do something about it. Is that a good analogy? Yeah. I'm going to go back to this 1903 March for Textile Kids that I mentioned at the front of the program. And the interesting thing about that march is that the kids loved being on the march because then they weren't in the mill. So it was a different life for them, a life that they never

experienced. They were delighted to be on the march, which is mind-blowing. Marches from Philadelphia to Oyster Bay, New York are pretty rigorous. But there they are, walking along the way. And they did face quite a few bad conditions along the way, but they loved being on the march. They lost by being on that march. It was an awful day in the middle. They knew that if they got to the president, there would be a chance that they wouldn't have to go back to those awful conditions. That didn't happen. And they did go back to those awful conditions. But the march took place in Philadelphia, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania right now. And a couple years after that march, the legislature here in Pennsylvania did make some reform in terms of child labor. And actually,

I think they said the kids couldn't start to work until they were 16 at that point. I might be a bit wrong about that. But by doing that, those kids made it possible for their friends and for their own family members to delay going to the mill by a couple of years. And that would have made a world of difference in terms of their education and in their health. Yeah, a lot of these lay the foundation for that or the guideposts for that. And then you have to wait for government to catch up and do the right thing and legislation to pass through bodies. And sometimes it takes a while for people's minds to change, like what we dealt with in the civil rights era and stuff. Sometimes it has to take these horrific images, Parkland, of course, and all the other different things that we've seen. Every time we see one of these atrocities on television

where people are slaughtered and for us to wake up and then slowly do things. It's sad that it takes so long to take the wheels of justice sometimes to grind, but when they do grind, they grind exceedingly fine, as they like to say. Anything we haven't talked about in the book or any stories that you want to give out before we go? I just want to highlight that kids sometimes have a purity of cause. And you mentioned or alluded to this early on. And often they're at the vanguard of social movements pointing the way. And so you're right, we adults do get beaten down. We're quick to compromise sometimes. We become pessimistic about the ability to change

the world. But one of the good things about kids is that they are not beaten down like that yet. And so they do have a purity of cause and often bring to movements an energy, an enthusiasm that adults sometimes lack. Now, I do want to emphasize that these kids are often realistic too. I think the Parkland kids, for example, were realistic about facing a Republican Congress and a Republican president at the time, all of whom

were opposed to reasonable gun reform legislation. Not all of them, but many of them. And so kids bring, kids are realistic as well, but they bring purity of cause and energy and enthusiasm and a willingness, which is just beautiful. It's inspirational, but it's also a model for us adults who are beaten down so much to look to them sometimes for the way to go. Yeah. As adults, we suck. Sometimes we're sold out for the money. We're worried about the wife and car and kids and all that sort of stuff or husband. And we're a bit, we're a bit, we have, we have, we're marginalized on our, on our biases and influences because, you know, sometimes you're just like, I have to do something, but somebody's got to pay the bills around here. And of course we're jaded in our old age.

We're just like, I want to watch TV, catch what's on Netflix and work and stuff. And so it's great that kids have this perspective of vision and stuff. There was one story that we missed that I was curious about. I don't know if you want to touch on it or we can, we can make it a teaser, but there's a great story in the book about the Vietnam war and stuff that's in here. Yeah.

Before you get to that, Chris, I want to follow up on your point. One of the things about the climate change movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg. Oh yes. Duh. Oh my gosh. Wow. That one. Yeah.

She had purity of focus. And one of the interesting things about Thunberg is that she, because of her, I think it was the emotional condition. She's an inspector, I think, for autism. An inspector for autism. She was unable to compartmentalize

that problem. Yeah. And most adults, like you and me, we can compartmentalize a problem. We can look at the possibility of nuclear war and then sit down with a bag of chips and watch sports. Bloomberg didn't have that ability, nor did she have that willingness to do. And she became stereoscopically focused on protesting climate injustice. That is the perfect example of the purity of focus that some kids bring to protest movements.

There's a great story about the Vietnam War in the book. It's about Mary Beth Tinker and her brother John and their friends. In 1965, the war is really beginning to rage. And this is early on in terms of protest movements for the Vietnam War. And Mary Beth Tinker is in school. Her brother is a little older than she is. And they decide with their friends that they're going to wear black armbands to school to protest.

And Mary Beth Tinker is the first who does. And when she gets to school, she's nervous and she's concerned. And her friends are nervous for her. And one of her good friends says that she probably shouldn't be wearing it. And Mary Beth Tinker says, but everybody's dying in the war. And it's so sad. She's sad about all these deaths. So she continues to wear this protest. Eventually, she's suspended from school and so is her brother and so are some friends for refusing to take off the armband or for having worn it and so they continue uh their fight they continue it through the courts and eventually this particular

case ends up as the famous tinker case and tinker v. Des Moines, and the Supreme Court decides that schools, public schools, do not have an authoritarian right over kids still have the right to free speech in public schools. Now, there are some conditions on that, right? And so they can't be disruptive of school discipline. And so that's a serious condition, no doubt. But because of Mary Beth Tinker and John Tinker and the witness of their friends, just by wearing black armbands to school, millions of kids have the right to free speech in public schools today with conditions. That's awesome. That's awesome. What a powerful thing. I should get some kids one of these days. I just have two dogs. I'm fighting with

one right now. But no, it's just extraordinary. And doing a callback to the Greta story, the really powerful thing about her is when she, that look she gave Donald Trump when he walked by and then the speech she gave, the shaming she did that was so beautiful where she's you adults and it was awesome she is weathering yes even i was like yeah oh shit i'm sorry we're screwing up yeah you're right she just called it and and what was so beautiful about her was just that succinctness like you say that laser focus and that ability to just i don't think there was an there shouldn't have been an adult. If you had a soul or a bit of empathy, just hearing her speak about it and what we were doing as adults.

And you're just like, yeah, I feel a bit of shame and we're doing bad. We need to do better. And you're looking at her and you're going, this is her future. This is why this is important. And she inspires so many other people because her story, she's just start out with that little poster at her future. This is why this is important. And she inspires so many other people because her story, she's just started out with that little poster at her school. And there's the pictures of her just sitting there alone, holding vigil. And then suddenly it becomes this worldwide movement. It was really a one person strike that she held. She did hold this sign outside the

Swedish parliament for a long time before people would approach her and talk with her about it. And then it just snowballed. That shows you the power as well that one kid can have over the world. It's amazing that she's moved the world so much. She's done it with hundreds of thousands of other kids by this point, and adults as well. But wow, the power of that one kid sitting down outside the Swedish parliament with a handmade sign is just amazing to me. And this is the inspiring part of your book. It's targeted towards kids that are within this age group and giving them kind of a blueprint for maybe how they want to take and design their future protest or invoke change in our world

yeah one of the key common themes throughout the book is about power and these kids realize unlike so many other kids i think and it's part of the purpose of the book that they have power and i think sometimes many of us adults who are so beaten down don't feel as if we have power either. But they have a clear sense that in those institutions and schools and communities and families where there's a pyramid structure of power, that if they begin to pull out of that,le topple right they realize sometimes that they're bought they're at the bottom in school and the principal's at the top and then there are teachers and teachers assistants and so forth but they realize that if they begin to step out of that pyramid boom and so these kids have the virtue of being able to see and understand that they have power and that's really part of what the book is about as well to help kids realize that they have power. And that's really part of what the book is about as well,

to help kids realize that you have power like Greta. You have power like Barbara Johns in 1951 in Virginia. You have power like those kids who attended the 1963 March on Washington. You have power to change the world. There you go, guys. And we'll go out with that. That's the power to change the world. Grab the book. Give us your plugs one more time, Michael, and tell us where people can order the book. You can go to their site. You can also go to Amazon. You can also go to all indie sites as well, indie books as well, especially.

And there you'll be able to find my profile. You can also find me on Facebook under Michael Long. Send me a friend request, and we'll get in touch. There you go. And do you also want to just give a shout-out real quick or a plug to your Jackie Robinson book? Sure. Thank you, Chris.

I do have a new book. We just published it on February 9th this year, so figure we can. Jackie Robinson Day is just around the corner, everybody. April 15th. There you go. It's Jackie Robinson Day. I have a new book out called 42 Today. Jackie Robinson and his legacy as a forward

by Ken Burns and Sarah Burns and David McMahon and then afterward by ESPN's Kevin Morita. It's a wonderful look at Robinson's legacy. I want to give a shout out though to Chris Voss for having me on this great podcast. He's here somewhere. He's here somewhere. And we would love to have you back, not to put you on the spot, but we'd love to have you back just to spend an hour with us on the Jackie Robinson book as well. So very awesome there. So guys, be sure to pick it up, go to the

websites, whether it's a local bookstore or Amazon. Do we get your.com where people can find you on the interwebs and learn more about you? I don't have a.com, but you can find me on profile on Amazon and on Facebook. There you go. Thank you very much, Michael, for spending some time with us and sharing this wonderful information and being here today. Chris, I had a great time. Thanks for your great questions. And congratulations on both your new books that you put out so far. And you have a lot of other books too. People should check out on Amazon as well. Let's protest and play ball.

Yes. I love protests, social justice, and people who stand up against oppression and in the greatest walls of resistance. And sometimes those tiny, as Bobby Kennedy used to say, those tiny ripples of hope send forth a current that can overflow all those different things. And sometimes we think what we do doesn't matter in the world, but it does. And so that difference that each one of us, when we stand up for an ideal, can help send forth. I just paraphrased the old Bobby Kennedy ripple of hope speech there. Check it out, guys. You'll definitely want to go up to your local Amazon, your local Amazon, your local bookseller or Amazon. Kids on the March, 15 stories of speaking out, protesting, and fighting for justice by Dr. Michael Long.

Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Be sure to go to YouTube.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, to see the video version of this. See us on the Clubhouse app. See us on Goodreads.com fortunate chris voss and all the groups we have on facebook linkedin and uh instagram uh wear your mask stay safe and we'll see you guys next time