Where are teen civil rights heroes?
So the other day, in my search for something to reflect on about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday beyond the blandness of breakfasts, fanfare and the “what would he do if he were alive today,” stuff, I decided to give Rodney Hurst a call. By the time I finished talking to him, for a minute, I wished I hadn’t. Hurst was 16 years old when he decided to give a righteous spin to the wheels of justice that King was preaching about. In 1960, he, along with fellow local NAACP Youth Council member Alton Yates, sat down to be served at the whites-only Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Jacksonville. Their courage sparked an event that would come to be known as Ax Handle Saturday. “As we got up to leave, we were always kicked, we were always stuck with hat pins,” said Hurst, who is writing a book about the Jacksonville sit-ins. “Anything that could be used to show disdain against us was used.” But still, Hurst and the demonstrators kept at it. Ultimately, they prevailed. So why wouldn
