Audrey Faye Hendricks

Audrey Faye Hendricks (1953–2009) was the youngest known demonstrator to be incarcerated during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963. At just nine years old, Audrey was involved in the Brown v. Board Education march with Civil Rights Leaders to establish that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, being one of many children who were arrested and jailed. Audrey was also one of thousands of children involved in the Children's Crusade on May 2, 1963.^[2]

Audrey Faye Hendricks was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1953 to Lola Mae Haynes and Joseph Hendricks, she also has a sister, Jan Hendricks Fuller. Audrey attended school at Center Street Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama.^[3] Audrey's mother, Lola Mae Hendricks was a clerk-typist and a secretary working from Shuttlesworth's office at Bethel Baptist Church.

The Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the segregated schools were unconstitutional in 1954. In 1961, Audrey's parents were among the Civil Rights Activists who won a lawsuit to integrate Birmingham's 67 parks, following to Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor's retaliated by closing the parks.^[4]

In 1963, Audrey and other students from her school decided to walk out of class and join the march to Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church with the Civil Rights Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. The students were organized into protest groups and marched the last four days in addition to demonstrating the discrimination in Birmingham. By May 6, Audrey was one of the approximately 2,000 children who were arrested and jailed in the Juvenile Hall, causing what is known as the Children's Crusade. This led to Hendricks being known as one of the youngest demonstrators to be incarcerated during the Civil Rights Movement.^[5]

In 1969, about 15 years after the Brown v. Board of Education, Hendricks attended her first desegregated school.^[6]

Later on after her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, Hendricks went to Bishop College and became a school teacher in Dallas, Texas. 8 years later, she was drawn back to Birmingham, Alabama, where she was helping children who were in low-income families, for 25 years. In 2007 she earned her master's degree.

توفي هندريكس في برمنغهام، ألاباما في الأول من مارس 2009 عن عمر يناهز 55 عامًا. ^{[ 7 ]}

في 17 يناير 2017، نشرت سينثيا ليفينسون كتاب " أصغر المشاركين في المسيرة: قصة أودري فاي هندريكس، ناشطة شابة في مجال الحقوق المدنية" ، وهو كتاب يتناول حياة أودري فاي هندريكس منذ طفولتها وانخراطها في حركة الحقوق المدنية ، بالإضافة إلى رحلتها وتجاربها كناشطة في سن مبكرة. ^{[ 8 ]}

• لولا هندريكس