In the Great Hall at Stetson Law, Civil Rights Era veteran Janice Wesley Kelsey and 2025 Wm. Reece Smith, Jr. Lecturer, drew laughter and tears from her audience as she shared stories of civil disobedience and thoughts on activism in 2025.
It was a rare opportunity for the community to get a glimpse of Stetson Law’s popular Civil Rights Summer Travel Course. Offered through the college’s Social Justice Advocacy concentration, the course explores the era through a legal lens and introduces students to important scholars and activists from the area, including Kelsey.
“Normally we go to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, but this evening we are absolutely thrilled to host her in our home,” said Law Professor Kristen Adams, noting how Kelsey is one of the course’s most beloved speakers as she introduced Kelsey. “She is a national treasure, and we are enormously honored to host her.”
Kelsey’s book, I Woke Up With My Mind on Freedom, chronicles her experience as a “foot soldier” in the Birmingham, Alabama Children’s Crusade. In her lecture, she recounted how she first got into the movement.
Becoming a Civil Rights “foot soldier”
Until the spring of 1963, 16-year-old Janice Wesley Kelsey hadn’t thought much about civil rights. The Birmingham, Alabama native was focused on things you’d expect to be on a teen’s mind.
“I was in 11th grade, and I thought all was well in my world,” she said. “I was interested in dancing and dating and being popular.”
All around her, the seeds of a movement were sprouting. A friend who attended Monday evening meetings discussing how to fight segregation would speak passionately about the movement at school on Tuesday.
“What she was saying sparked my interest,” Kelsey said.
She started to attend student nonviolence workshops where she was shown filmstrips of demonstrations in other cities during in which demonstrators were spit on, hit, and pulled off the lunch counter stools. The organizer warned that similar things would happen to those who got involved in the movement, but they cannot fight back. “This is a nonviolent movement,” she recalls being told.
Skipping school to join a movement
Before the first demonstration took place in early May of 1963, organizers warned the marchers they would likely be arrested.
Kelsey went to school that morning, but wasn’t planning to stay. During first period, she asked a young teacher about potential consequences of leaving for the march.
“I asked her, ‘suppose some kids walked out of class today. Are they all going to fail?’” Wesley recalled. “And she said, ‘if everybody walks, there’s nobody to fail.’ That gave me all the encouragement I needed.”
The marchers gathered at the 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelsey recalled, and people were everywhere, including police.
Singing ‘We Shall Overcome,” they walked out of the sanctuary in pairs. But they didn’t get far.
“The officer who stopped us was carrying a baton, he was wearing a gun, and he said we were in violation of a city ordinance. He said ‘you cannot parade without a permit.’”
Some of her fellow demonstrators began chanting ‘we are not afraid,’ which gave her the courage to stay in the line and face being arrested.
When it happened, Kelsey lied about her age so she could go to the same jail as her best friend, who was one year her junior.
Things intensified in the coming months. Authorities targeted protestors with high-powered firehoses that tore away demonstrators’ hair and clothes. President John F. Kennedy praised the teenagers who marched during a television broadcast.
“I thought ‘wow, we are really in it now,’” Kelsey said.
Progress and tragedy
Successes came as the movement grew and national sentiment shifted in favor of the movement – but so did more violence, including bombings.
On Sunday, September 15, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four Black girls. Kelsey didn’t go to that church, but she knew the victims and their families.
“The surprise wasn’t that the church had been bombed, but on a Sunday morning?” Kelsey said.
The following year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and forced the desegregation of schools and other public places.
Kelsey went on to become an educator, but said she often experienced survivor’s guilt. Although it took years to bring those responsible for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing to justice, Kelsey said she felt encouraged when it finally happened.
Inspiring others to be brave
In a question-and-answer session following her talk, Kelsey was asked how students and legal professionals can tackle current-day efforts to roll back civil rights. Suggesting that law students “are in the perfect position” to be advocates for their communities, she urged the audience to put their talents, knowledge, and passion to work on good causes.
“My hope is in you. You young people,” Kelsey said. “I’m too old to go back to jail. There is hope because you have prepared yourself for the challenges you are now facing.”
Following the lecture, Law Professor Rebecca Morgan, a nationally known scholar in elder law and founder of Stetson’s Center for Elder Justice, was honored with the Wm. Reece, Smith, Jr. Public Service Award.
Original source can be found here.