How did young people and popular conceptions of children and youth help to shape the black freedom struggle? How did young people contribute to and set the tone for the civil rights movement? In the first book to connect young people and ideas about children and youth with American's struggle for racial equality, Rebecca de Schweinitz explains how historical constructions of childhood and youth, and young people themselves, influenced the long history of the civil rights movement. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, "If We Could Change the World" presents the voices and experiences of participants who are rarely heard and explores familiar events from the black freedom struggle in new ways. In de Schweinitz's work, young people--elementary age, adolescent, and young adult--take their place as significant historical and political actors in the civil rights movement.