- So where are we goin'?
- You know I can't tell you.
- Come on man, tell me.
- We're on a journey.
I got movies here, if you wanna watch anything.
The movies are down there.
- You literally have two copies of Frozen.
- Yes.
Two copies, not just one.
- Two. - You never know,
you never know, when you might need another.
♪ Here we go ♪
- [Announcer] Please welcome Kid President, Robby Novak.
- I wasn't here 50 years ago,
but I hope to be in the next 50 years.
- [Martin Luther King, Jr.] Now is the time
to make real the promises of democracy,
now is the time.
Make Selma, Alabama, a better city,
now's the time.
- From the early days of Civil War to the Civil Rights Era,
Selma, Alabama has been a key place in American history,
and that's where we're headed.
- [Voiceover] In March of 1965
thousands of Americans from all over the country
gathered in Selma, Alabama.
They marched 54 miles to the state capitol in Montgomery
to dramatize the extent of racial injustice in that state,
and throughout all the deep south.
- One of the people we're gonna be meeting
is a woman by the name of Miss Joanne.
She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
John Lewis, lots of other brave men and women,
and yet she was only 11 years old.
Hey, look, there's the bridge.
- [Robby] Wow.
So, you mean there are kids who cross this bridge
every single day?
- [Brad] Yeah. - [Robby] That's insane.
- [Brad] And you're gonna get to meet some of them.
- [Robby] So, I got to meet a group of kids
who called themselves The Hope Dealers.
They're dedicated to making their community better
by creating music videos,
♪ Don't let your loved ones down all right ♪
- [Robby] even doing their own radio shows.
They're always making a difference,
no matter what they're doing.
- What you got?
I was a bit rusty on the drum kit, but I played it anyway.
Which was a bad idea.
And Miss Jerria, well,
- What's up?
- She showed me up.
The kids and Ms. Jerria,
they are always up to something good.
- Bathroom, this literally used to be a bathroom.
Me and the kids gutted it out.
- [Robby] It was inspiring to see all the things
that they were doing.
They showed us around their community,
welcomed me and Brad in like family.
Before this, everything I had ever seen about Selma
has been like in an old photo, always related to the past.
But these kids showed me where they live.
Now, it's their home.
It's a place where they can be theirselves
and just have fun.
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have gotten in that swing.
It took me way too long to get out.
Everywhere we went, there were people doing something
to make their town better for kids.
The Edmundite Mission let us tag along with a group of kids,
getting a sneak peak of their brand new community center.
- Well, we're just basically havin' some fun.
- [Robby] This entire place is a work in progress,
and soon it will be a place for kids and families of Selma
to dream big dreams.
- [Kids] One, two, three, community!
- When it came time to meet Miss Joanne Bland,
I started getting a little nervous.
But as soon as I met her, she put me at ease real quick.
- [Brad] So Robby, you just focus on havin' a conversation
with your friend here and ask her anything you want.
- [Brad] Well, within reason.
- Yeah, within reason. - Okay.
What was it for you like when you walked,
when you marched when you're so young?
Like, what was the experience?
- [Joanne] Well, I really did not know
what we were marching for, when I first started marching.
There's a drug store on Broad street called
Carter's drugstore, it's still there today.
But in the '60s it had a lunch counter.
And I wanted to sit at the lunch counter,
but my grandmother said I couldn't.
She said, "Colored children,"
that was what we were called then,
"can't sit at the counter."
But it didn't stop me from wanting to sit at that counter.
Every time I pass by, I see those white kids spinning around
on those stools, licking those ice cream cones,
and I'd wish it was me.
One day we were on the Board Street,
in front of Carter's drugstore
and my grandmother was talkin' to one of her friends
and I was doin' what I always do, peepin' at window.
This particular day, my grandmother noticed,
and she leaned over my shoulder,
and she pointed through the window, to the counter,
she said, "When we get our freedom, you could do that too."
I became a freedom fighter that day.
I wanted to sit at that counter.
- You were 11 years old when you marched.
- It was exciting.
People were there who did look like us,
white people were there, and Latino people were there,
Jewish people were there.
At one time, I thought every kid in the United States
was doin' the same thing that I was doin' here in Salem,
marchin', even going to jail, seein' these people.
So, I didn't have everything to compare it to,
so I thought it was happening all over the world.
- [Robby] What can we do today?
- All young people ask me that.
I do know you should be doing somethin',
I don't know how to make you a roadmap
to get to where we need to go.
I think all young people, including you,
should imagine what type of world you want.
Just the people you love, just your circle of love,
to live in, and then you should try to work toward that.
- We all have a duty, to make sure
the world keeps dreaming of better things.
Keep dreaming, keep dreaming, keep dreaming.
- You're the ones,
you're the ones we have been waiting for.
It's every generation's responsibility
to make the world a better place than they found it.
- [Robby] Man, we've been in some wild places.
- [Brad] How did it feel to be surrounded
by so much history?
- [Robby] Very surreal, kinda like in your mind
you can't believe, you're like, "This really happened here."
- At the same time though, you were surrounded
by like, kids doing stuff now.
- Well, it is very important
to learn things from the past
but it's really important that we do things now,
in the future.
- [Brad] I think that is the secret, let the past teach us
so we can do something right now.
Are we there yet, huh?
Are we?
We got stuff to do.
Do you wanna watch Frozen?
- [Robby] Sure.
- [Brad] I got 2 copies.
- [Robby] All right.
- [Brad] Yeah.