DescriptionRufus Jackson Jones is from Birmingham, Alabama, the place that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the most segregated place in the country. A place that in 1963 is full of civil rights activists, including Dr. King. The adults are trying to get more attention for their cause, showing that separate is not equal. Rufus’s stepfather works at the local steel mill where his mother is a cook. They, like other adults in the community, fear that they will lose their jobs is they protest, and will certainly face the wrath of the local sheriff, a powerful man named Bull Connor. So that’s where the kids decide they will come in – nobody can fire them for peacefully protesting in the park! There they are met by policemen and fireman who turn their powerful hoses on the children. Author Sheila Moses gives readers a deeply personal account of one boy’s heroism during what came to be known as the Children’s Crusade in this important novel that highlights a key turning point in the civil rights movement.