The Children

by David Halberstam

Thomas decided to go at this as if it were an extension of the civil rights movement, and he was once again a pioneer. He would assume that he was always on alien ground, that the odds were quietly against him, but that if he listened and learned and committed every fiber of his being to its success, he might be able to pull it off.

Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and Earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber...the Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

some of what we fought for has been achieved, and even taken for granted. Just then the bus arrived in Montgomery and he descended. Almost as soon as he stepped down, the CBC interviewer asked, “Do you feel you made a difference?” The question, he thought, had just been answered for him on the bus. “Yes,” he said, “I know we did.”