While Black people in this country have been celebrating Juneteenth for decades, what is sometimes referred to as Emancipation Day or America's "second Independence Day" is only being celebrated as a national holiday this year for the third time.

June 19th marks the date in 1865 when the last enslaved people in the U.S. learned they were free. on that day, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army delivered the news to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas.

But for African Americans, the fight for freedom began long before the Civil War. And it didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. So to mark the day we're looking at a turning point in the fight for civil rights — The Children's Crusade.

NPR's Debbie Elliot traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, which is marking the 60th anniversary of the movement, when leaders like Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. looked to children to join the struggle for equal rights. The vicious response from white segregationists shocked the world and galvanized support for the Civil Rights Act.

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