The famous Greensboro "sit-ins", in which black students would occupy a place reserved for white students, started with a sit-in on February 1st, 1960 in Woolworth's store. Joseph McNeil, Izell Blair, Franklin McCain, and David Richmond, students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, planned and carried out this first sit-in. For the first hour, they remained unnoticed. The next day, they brought thirty students to the counter for about two hours, attracting local reporters. The following day, protesters occupied every spot at the counter. After several threats, the store manager temporarily closed the store. Woolworth's store in Greensboro eventually desegregated after losing more than $200,000.
Though making Southerners angrier than before, the impact the sit-in had over students resulted in over 54 sit-ins throughout the North Carolina by February 7th. Students wanted to speed up the pace of the movement and gain equality faster. Word of the sit-ins traveled fast as the press reported the event all over the country.
Ella Baker organized a Southern Christian Leadership Conference, bringing in "sit-in" participants from all over the South. This Conference was held in Raleigh at Shaw University on April 16th and give birth to the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC). As students had much less to lose, the younger generation began to join the SNCC while the NAACP appealed to an older generation. These sit-ins became a large element of the civil rights movement with over 70,000 people participating total.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/greensboro_1960.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/sitin.html
Great Post!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you feel was the most important sit-in of the civil rights movement? How long would some of these sit ins take? Why were they so successful compared to violence?
I did some research on another type of protest: marches. I found out some interesting information about the Selma marches: the march from Selma to Montgomery to protest Jimmy Lee Jackson's shooting during a peaceful march in Montgomery. After "Bloody Sunday" a day where many white people attacked the marchers in Alabama, the President Johnson had to issue a statement deploring the way the Black people were treated. The Selma marches led the president ponder the current Civil rights condition in America. It also resulted in Johnson preparing an act called the Voting Rights act to give to Congress. The Voting Rights Act made it illegal to use unfair practices to prevent Black people from voting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches#Aftermath_and_historical_impact
When I read this post, the person who I thought of even before Ella Baker was Stokely Carmichael. He was a major civil rights activist and participated in Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality. To him, black power meant self-determination. He is best known as the "bridge figure" between civil rights and black power. If anyone is interested, I'd highly recommend reading this interview with his biographer, Peniel Joseph. He gives interesting insight into Stokely's personal life and his accomplishments.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/how-should-we-remember-activist-stokely-carmichael/