LEAP Artists Live! Brings to Life the Nameless Kids That Marched with Dr. King in ‘63
Over 5,000 kids joined the civil rights marchers led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, AL in 1963. “The Movement” a play celebrating their stand against segregation and the brutal crackdown by the police using fire houses and police dogs was performed at Symphony Space on MLK Jr’s birthday on Jan. 15. It will be performed again on March 20 and Juneteenth.
| 22 Jan 2024 | 12:29
The play “The Movement” celebrates the kids who marched against segregation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, AL in 1963. Photo: Symphony Space
“The Movement” a play about the many children who accompanied Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he marched against segregation in Birmingham, AL, in 1963, was performed at Symphony Space on the Jan. 16th holiday marking MLK’s birthday and will be performed again at that venue on March 20 and Juneteenth. Photo: Symphony Space
Dr. Martin Luther King got the world to watch when he marched against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. “The Movement”, a seasonal acapella play, sometimes performed by children and sometimes by adult professionals has gotten New York to revisit the climactic civil rights story since 2009, through a different perspective than what we’re used to. This Martin Luther King Day it was shown at the off-Broadway Symphony Place theater.
“The Movement” is the story of the children and teenagers that defied their nervous parents, hard-headed churches and schools to sing for freedom with Dr. King. Their names are irrelevant to the history books, but those high school kids were hosed down by fire trucks and beaten up by police and treated just an inhumanely as the adults. A three-year-old was put in jail alongside Dr. King where the activist wrote “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Even after twelve years of school and a full college education, playwright Kathy D. Harrison, a Detroit native, had never known of these kids, to her great disappointment. It wasn’t until 2009, that a documentary called “The Children’s Crusade of 1963” enlightened her, then inspired her to write “The Movement.” She composed every song except for the original spirituals that were used at the march, she choreographed the dances and wrote the script.
“Not everyone gets recognized and acknowledged for their contributions made to the world, and particularly not young people.”, Harrison says. Gwen Webb, Gloria Washington, Jerome Taylor, James “Shackdaddy” Orange and his two sisters, are a few of the many children who marched to city hall.
Harrison is the Artistic Director and one of the founders of LEAP Artists LIVE!, to which she’s given her work such as “The Movement” and “Southern Boys”, the first of which won Best Musical, Best Choreography and Best Director at the National Black Theatre Festival. LEAP Artists Live! was created in 2019 as a performing theater troupe that teaches New York school kids the value of the performing arts.
Their team of entertainers and teachers go from school to school, hosting workshops and offering residencies to young New Yorkers, who then get to perform shows like “The Movement”. This rendition, however, was put on by the adult team, some of whom have been with Harrison since the age of 11. The professional ensemble performs regularly, sometimes alongside the kids, sometimes on their own like Jan. 16.
LAL’s parent foundation, LEAP, which started its educational mission in 1977 serving only four schools, now employs nearly 300 teaching artists who educate 20,000 children from primary to high school across all five boroughs.
“It is thanks to Kathy’s vision that we are here today”, Monique Jarvis, Director of Communications said on stage after the final MLK day performance holding a grand bouquet of flowers for Kathy Harisson.
“The Movement” was first performed in 2009 with Harrison’s previous youth theater company, Diversity Youth Theater. LEAP Artist Live! presented its first production at the NY Theater Festival in 2019.
The MLK day celebration started off with a guitar, piano and drum pre-show recital. It was Minister James Bevel, played that night by Clinton Faulkner, who preached to these children and motivated them to march with Dr. King. Between May 2nd and May 10th 1963, 5,000 school kids marched to city hall to confront the mayor about segregation in Birmingham. Minister Bevel was a crucial right-hand man to Dr. King. He died in 2008 a few weeks before beginning his 15-year prison sentence for an incestual relationship with his then teenage daughter.
Two young members of LAL, the same age as many of the stars of Birmingham’s children’s crusade, were present at the show, and beckoned on stage by Harrison to say a few words about their experience with the program.
Abigail, a high school junior from Brooklyn who spent two weeks presenting “The Movement” to communities around New York says “Touring with LEAP changed the way I live my life today.” It not only boosted her self-confidence in the arts but set her on the path to become a professional musical theater performer.
Harrison is thrilled to have realized her vision for “The Movement”, which was dedicated to people who may not have the privilege of being able to see a Broadway show, or even have any interest in seeing one, but people who would like to see performers who look like them, and to see stories about their ancestors.
“Broadway is not the only place for theater to exist”, Harrison says despite Symphony Palace technically being on Broadway, the street, a running joke in the ensemble. “We have to bring it right there in people’s faces, right into the communities.”
LEAP Artists Live! will be performing “The Movement” again on March 20th and Juneteenth at the Symphony Space theater on 95th and Broadway.