The Nashville Sit-Ins In The 1940's

In the book March Book One the people of Nashville chose to stage the sit-ins to protest the segregation between blacks and whites. They chose to sit and wait to be serve and they wouldn’t leave until they were served. They had to learn how to protest without violence and spend many hours practicing by humiliating each other and learning how to protect themselves when attacked.

With school boards avoiding integration once again, Greensboro civil rights activists were becoming anxious to desegregate public facilities in order to be successful unlike public schools. Dr. George Simkins pushed for the desegregation of all public facilities in Greensboro, and he even succeeded in doing so for golf courses. Four black students were inspired and tired of the racial inequality they had grown up in, so they arranged a non-violent protest by simply sitting in Woolworth’s Diner and demanding service. The protest tactic grew in numbers as more students, both male and female, endorsed the movement. In response, young white males began participating by verbally and physically assaulting some of the demonstrators, and government officials wanted store managers to arrange for the arrest of protestors before the situation got too unruly. Blacks boycotted the purchase of goods until they were served like their white counterparts, but the protests scared away the white consumers causing the stores and diners’ sales to drop. Diners and department stores worked in accordance to agree on a procedure to desegregate lunch counters. Select department stores refused to desegregate entire facilities, and most people believed that they did not have to because they had already compromised. Certain businesses did not want to segregate and

On February 7th, 1960, a week after the Greensboro sit-ins, The Nashville Student Movement had begun their first real sit-in. The objective of these sit-ins was to desegregate lunch counters in downtown Nashville. Book 1 goes into detail about the preparation for these sit-ins. Months before this

In the first presentation, I noticed an event called the Greensboro Sit-ins. This was a single event that sparked a nationwide movement and flood of support for the civil rights movement and the issue of business owners withholding service from those who were not white. On February 1st, 1960, 4 students of the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat at a whites-only lunch table, requested service, and were then denied and asked to leave. When they left, they went to tell campus leaders what had happened and as a result gained people that wanted to participate in the sit-in. It is said that “the next morning twenty-nine neatly dressed male and female [NCATSU] students sat at the Woolworth’s lunch counter,” the same counter where those first four students sat (NorthCarolinaHistory.org). After this happened, protests occurred each week and hundreds of students were showing up at Woolworth’s. Following this, more and more students from around the US were staging sit ins at segregated lunch counters as a form of non-violent protest against discrimination.

February 1st, 1960; the Greensboro Sit Ins; Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. “Segregated conditions were as characteristic of Greensboro, however, as they were of cities with reputations for racial violence and intimidation.” The Greensboro Sit Ins made a huge impact not only in North Carolina, but along the Southeast states; thirteen states and fifty five different cities. This was where a group of four black male freshmen college students at A&T State University who

African Americans were able to gain much attention and sympathy through their various protests and they were also able to advance politically and economically with their enactment of civil rights laws. In the 1960s nonviolent protests were prevalent among African American; in 1960 students in North Carolina started the sit-in movement after being denied service at Woolworth’s lunch counter (which was segregated). Thereafter the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed to maintain this movement where students would deliberately get arrested for sitting in restricted areas. This movement facilitated the

There were an additional three major events that helped end segregation. The first being the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which had started because of the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1st, 1955. It started when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white person, and because of this she was arrested, tried and convicted of disorderly conduct. The outrage sparked by her arrested led to a 13-month mass boycott of Montgomery buses. This boycott led to the Supreme Court’s decision to ban segregation on buses in 1956. The second event was on September 24th, 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal Troops and the National Guard intervened and escorted a group of nine African American children, who became known as the “Little Rock Nine”, to Little Rock Central High School and ensure that they were safe, which aided in ending the segregation in schools in Arkansas. The third event was the Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-on which occurred on February 1st, 1960. This event while prompting similar non-violent protests all over the South, also ended segregation at the Woolworth department store chain in the Southern United States.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) used a form of protest by union workers called sit-ins. After it was successful with CORE 4 African Americans Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr, David Richmond and Franklin McCain suggested a sit in Woolworth department store. They were afraid, but they did it. They entered and bought supplied, then sat at the lunch counter and ordered coffee. The people there wouldn’t service them, but serviced them on the other counter. The four stayed until they closed and said they would do that every day until they were serviced. They left the Woolworth exited and persuaded by what they did. This convinced more and more African American to sit-in and wait until they were serviced. The NAACP and SClC were nervous about the sit-in campaign.

The Greensbro sit-ins first started on February 1st, 1960. Four black college freshman in Greensbro, North Carolina, visited a white-only Woolsworth's lunch counter where they demanded service. The black waitress refused to serve them, remarking that "fellows like you make our race look bad,". Regardless of this, the four men stayed seated. They returned the next day with nineteen classmates, and the day after that with eighty-five. By the end of the week there were over one-thousand black students attending the sit-in. The Sit-in movement began to spread throughout the South, though this time not just at lunch counters. The transportation industry, restaurants, and even voter registration were all recipients of this movement. The goal was

Blacks couldn’t use the same public places as whites, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools.Racially mixed marriage was illegal, and most blacks couldn’t vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests. Jim Crow laws weren’t taken in northern states; however, blacks still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education.On February 1, 1960, African American students were denied counter service at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina because the policy was that only white customers could sit at the counter; African Americans had to stand. The next day they returned with more students and the peaceful protest called a "sit-in" was begun. Across the South, peaceful sit-ins by students took place in more than 100 cities in 1960. Although the protesters were beaten, and sometimes sent to jail, they continued to peacefully sit-in until they achieved their goals -- desegregation of places of public

In the early 1960s, Birmingham was, culturally and forced by police, one of the most racially divided cities in the United States. Blacks did not have the same legal and economic rights as their white brethren. When attention was drawn to this issue, they were faced with violent responses. It was conceivably the most segregated city in the country. Protests began to form to fight for equal chance of employment at businesses and to end segregation in public places such as stores and schools. Sit-ins were soon organized after the failed protests to produce a copious amount of arrests and draw the country's attention towards Birmingham. Shortly after, the amount of adults to take part in the sit-ins fell harshly and there were new volunteers. High school and college students rose to the occasion and took part in passively fighting for their rights. With the addition of the students also came many of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). Among those who came with the SCLC was a very important guest. One who was jailed, had an article criticizing himself and his methods, and was able to produce a letter in which he responded to the writers of the article while incarcerated. This man

Word quickly spread to other universities, cities, and towns across the state and the nation. Over the next two months, similar sit-ins were staged in 54 cities in nine different states. On July 24, 1960, Woolworth's lunch counters were finally integrated. Eventually, the Greensboro Sit-ins would influence public buildings across the South to become integrated.2

During sit-ins, (black and white) protesters occupied seats at whites’ only lunch counters and remained there even after they were refused service, sometimes for hours. The sit-ins employed the tactic of civil disobedience, breaking the law in a peaceful way to call attention to an unjust law. Student training and counseling in the principles for the sit-ins included the following ’10 Rules of Conduct’ which were the required standards for all those who were supporting the protest: “Do show yourself friendly on the counter at all times. Do sit straight and always face the counter. Don’t strike back, or curse if attacked. Don’t laugh out. Don’t hold conversations. Don’t block entrances. …Remember the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Love and nonviolence is the way” (Library, 2006). Sit-ins disrupted business, making it impossible for white businessmen to ignore the protester’s demands. Highly visible sit-ins in downtown Nashville department stores were also guaranteed to attract press

Another significant transformation took place in the Civil Rights Movement in terms of its strategies. In analyzing this facet of the movement, we notice a great shift from nonviolent demonstration to forward, forceful action. Specifically, at the start of the Civil Rights Movement, lunch counter sit-ins were evident throughout the nation, as were Freedom Riders. Starting in Greensboro, North Carolina at a luncheonette called Woolworths, young black citizens would seat

The popularity of sit-ins can be reflected in the involvement of the N.A.A.C.P. (The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People). An article published by the New York Times talks about planned demonstrations that will occur in New York City which will be headed by the N.A.A.C.P (Robinson 54). This example shows how large the movement had become by summer 1961 because a nationally recognized organization was already actively involved in demonstrating. Another article, printed in late 1961, reports that the national director of the Congress of Racial Equality would begin planned sit-ins nation wide, with a focus in the South and the Midwest (“Negroes to Broaden” 18). This again proves how effective sit-ins were because a nationally recognized organization was taking the movement and organizing a nation wide effort to end discrimination.