The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 Study Guide

Christopher Paul Curtis was born on May 10, 1953, in Flint, Michigan, a place that would later become the setting of some of his most famous works. He was born to Dr. Elmer Curtis and Leslie Jane Curtis and is the second oldest of five siblings. While Curtis was growing up, his father practiced podiatry for some time before ultimately beginning a job at an assembly line for better pay. It wasn’t too long before Curtis followed his lead. After graduating from Flint Southwestern High School in 1972, Curtis enrolled at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus and applied for a job at Fisher Body Plant No. 1 General Motors assembly facility. This allowed Curtis to make decent pay, which went towards paying for his part-time degree (which he received in 2000). At the assembly line, Curtis set up his work schedule so that he and his colleague would each work 30 minutes before alternating. Curtis would then use his “free” time to read novels and combat his boredom by writing while on the job. After working a series of other low-paying jobs, Curtis took the year off from working in 1993 to focus on writing what would eventually become The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. For this debut novel, Curtis won a Newbury Honor Award in 1996. More books followed, as well as more honors and literary awards such as the Coretta Scott King Award for his next novel, Bud, Not Buddy. Curtis remains a prolific writer and continues to write historical fiction with young Black protagonists for a young adult audience. He currently resides in Ontario, Canada, with his wife and children.

In many ways, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 is a timeless story about a young Black boy coming of age and dealing with ordinary problems—like bullying, getting along with his siblings, and learning tough lessons about the harsh reality of adult life. However, the novel takes place against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, which took place in the 1950s and 1960s and was a time of massive cultural upheaval, as Black activists pushed for racial equality and desegregation. The civil rights movement was particularly focused on Southern states that followed racist, segregationist Jim Crow laws, which ensured the continued oppression of Black Americans even 100 years after the end of slavery. In particular, Birmingham, Alabama was a significant location in the civil rights movement, since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other important organizers chose to focus on the city because of its glaring mistreatment of Black citizens and its overt segregation. Although The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 doesn’t spend all that much time exploring the historical events that took place in Birmingham that summer, it does reference the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which took place on September 15, 1963. The bombing was carried out by members of the extremist hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan, who specifically targeted the church during Sunday School, ultimately killing four young Black girls and injuring many others. Even though the police knew who carried out the attack, no legal proceedings took place until 12 years later, in 1977. 

Like The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, many of Christopher Paul Curtis’s novels feature coming-of-age stories that center around young Black protagonists. His second book, Bud, Not Buddy, shares a number of similarities with The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, since both novels are set in Flint, Michigan, have young Black boys as their main character, explore race and history, and involve road trips through the United States. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 also has a lot in common with One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, another Young Adult work of historical fiction in which three sisters go to live with their mother in Oakland, California in the summer of 1968 and end up in the same orbit as the Black Panther Party. Because The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 is also about bullying, it’s worth considering alongside American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang and Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s Fish in a Tree, both of which are about what it’s like to experience bullying as a young person. In terms of relevant books outside the Young Adult genre, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Why We Can’t Wait provides an in-depth account of the push for desegregation and racial equality that took place in Birmingham in the summer of 1963.