What is the Sit-In Campaigns?

Answer 1

Throughout the South, a generation that had grown up with segregation was about to demand a change -- to stand up, by sitting down. On January 31, 1960, a black college student by the name of Joseph McNeil went to a lunch counter of a Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was then refused service for being black, so he came back the next day with three other students, named Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair, Jr. from North Carolina A& T University to protest racial segregation in restaurants by sitting at "white-only" lunch counters while waiting to be served. They purchased some school supplies, then went to the lunch counter and asked to be served. They knew they probably would not be. The four freshmen at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College were black, and this lunch counter was segregated. This began the nationwide non-violent "sit-in" movement to protest racial discrimination. While protests and boycotts achieved some success in integrating aspects of education and transportation, other facilities such as theaters, restaurants, and amusement parks limit or prevent access to blacks, or maintained separate invariably inferior, facilities for African Americans. However, prior to this demonstration and between 1943 and 1960, sit-ins had taken place in Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, and at least fifteen cities, including Nashville, Tennessee. The earlier protests did not gain full attention until 1960, when the southern Civil Rights Movement gained momentum. When the sit-ins first began, it did not gain much attention, but after many students started sitting down at the counters, it gained public attention. Within ten days the sit-ins spread to 15 southern cities. Nashville, Tennessee became the center for student nonviolent workshops and directed action led by James Lawson and Diane Nash. Gordon Carey, a representative from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), came down from New York to organize more sit-ins. <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O ?>

"We Started Because We Were Tired of Waiting for You to Act."-Sit-In Participant in Chattanooga, TN

Ella Baker of the SCLC contacted students on many college campuses. In two weeks, students in eleven cities held sit-ins, primarily at Woolworth's and S.H. Kress stores. The basic plan of the sit-ins was that a group of students would go to a lunch counter and ask to be served. If they were, they'd move on to the next lunch counter. If they were not, they would not move until they had been. If they were arrested, a new group would take their place. The students always remained nonviolent and respectful. Students in Nashville had some "Do's" and "Don'ts" during sit-ins:

Do show yourself friendly on the counter at all times. Do sit straight and always face the counter. Don't strike back, or curse back if attacked. Don't laugh out. Don't hold conversations. Don't block entrances.

When an article in the New York Times drew attention to the students' protest, they were joined by more students, both black and white, and students across the nation were inspired to launch similar protests. There was the faith and support of blacks and whites in Greensboro, such as the three young white women who were expelled from then Greensboro Woman's College (now UNCG) for sitting down with the protesters on the fourth day. And there was white clothier Ralph Johns, the February One strategist who actually gave the students the money to make purchases. Mid way through the year of 1961, there were over 60,000 student participants and there were over 2,500 arrests. Because of the sit-ins, Nashville became the first major city in the South to allow blacks and whites to eat together in public places. In less than two months, the Sit-In Movement spread across the country, changing the South forever. The Greensboro four showed that nonviolent direct action and youth could be a very useful weapon in the war against segregation.