Freedom on the Menu

[sheshe2]

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/freedom-on-the-menu-by-carole-boston-weatherford/

The Greensboro Sit-In



The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African-American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth’s and other establishments to change their segregationist policies.

Greensboro Four

The Greensboro Four were four young black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. All four were students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College.

They were influenced by the non-violent protest techniques practiced by Mohandas Gandhi, as well as the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in 1947, in which interracial activists rode across the South in buses to test a recent Supreme Court decision banning segregation in interstate bus travel.

The Greensboro Four, as they became known, had also been spurred to action by the brutal murder in 1955 of a young black boy, Emmett Till, who had allegedly whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi store.

Read More: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-sit-in

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I have to hand it to the artist that painted that book cover, Jerome Lagarrigue. Beautifully done. The mothers and little girls face says it all.

Freedom on the Menu.

[Tanuki]

1. Thanks for this! Coincidentally, today is the anniversary of John Lewis'

first arrest, 58 years ago, for a lunch-counter sit-in in Nashville, where he was a bible college student.

Link to tweet

[Docreed2003]

2. That Woolworths lunch counter has now been restored

And open as a restaurant preserving that history in downtown Nashville!

[sheshe2]

4. I would love to see it someday.

Thank you Docreed.

[Tanuki]

5. We should have a Nashville DU meet-up! Come on down sheshe!

[sheshe2]

6. Lol!

If I can scrape the money together I would love it. What fun!

[Docreed2003]

7. Here is the article from a few weeks ago

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2018/02/01/inside-look-civil-rights-history-takes-stage-woolworth-5th-pays-homage-nashville-civil-rights-histor/1055003001/

[sheshe2]

8. Thank you for the link.

It is beautiful and holds so many memories. Change happened there.

“Acme was a building restoration, as iconic as it was, Loveless was a restaurant that was a tradition, but this property changed the world,” Morales said, referring to Woolworth on 5th. “I think there’s a history here that needs to be retold.”

Woolworth on 5th is also part of the newly launched U.S. Civil Rights Trail, which charts the course of the civil rights movement at more than 100 locations across 14 states.

[Docreed2003]

9. I was thrilled to see this piece of history restored

The book “The Children” by David Halberstam provides a great insight into the place Nashville holds in the Civil Rights movement. I hope that Nashville will continue to preserve and highlight that legacy. (As an aside, I never pass through downtown without looking across the Cumberland River and seeing the steeple of American Baptist Seminary, the alma mater of John Lewis, without thinking about that shy, introverted young man who would go on to be a lion of the movement!). Also, my apologizes for posting within a group to which I’m not a member. I view DU on my phone and I tend to look at the thread titles and miss the groups, I hope that my intrusion is acceptable.

[sheshe2]

11. Hey, Docreed.

Thanks for your story about traveling through downtown and viewing John's Alma Marta.

This group, when they were active were welcoming to all. Their only request was you abide by there rules and respect there group... most did and some didn't. You did as did I and therefore welcome. No apologies needed. The core of this group are gone now. I love this place even though it is rather empty now...the good peeps were chased away and are missed.

[Tanuki]

13. Thanks for mentioning this, Doc! I have an office in the building that

was the former Harvey's Department Store in downtown Nashville. Harvey's had a lunch counter and was the scene of sit-ins as well. I often think of the building's history and the courage of John Lewis, James Lawson, Diane Nash, and the other student activists of that era, and feel that I am treading on hallowed ground.

[sheshe2]

3. He is a hero, Tanuki.

this makes me cry...Selma.

[Cha]

10. Mahalo for this poignant work of art, she

Freedom on the Menu

[sheshe2]

12. Hey you, thanks.

Cha

[qwlauren35]

14. Yup, it spread.

You don't hear much about it, but the sit-ins pretty much went "nationwide", or rather throughout the South. I think in every major city and college town, there is probably a story about a sit-in. The college students targeted the major stores. (I don't remember them. I read about them a few years ago.) And forced the entire chains to integrate. It's very important to know that it spread, wide and far, and that it happened in all major cities and towns. It never would have worked otherwise.

[qwlauren35]

15. Found this from BHM 2017 when I did the Civil Rights Movement.

The first CORE-sponsored sit-in was held in 1943 in Chicago. Twenty-seven black and white members of CORE sat at Jack Spratt Coffee House. When the blacks were refused service, both the black and white members refused to get up. Other customers participated, and eventually, the black CORE members were served. Sit-ins were then tried in St. Louis in 1949 and in Baltimore in 1955, by a group of Morgan students who sat at the counter of Read’s Drug Store. When the story was picked up by newspapers, Read integrated its lunch counters. But it was the 1960 sit-in in Greensboro that sparked an explosion in the effort. Over many months, small groups of students studied and debated the strategies and tactics of Nonviolent Resistance. Under cover of church, YMCA, and educational conferences, students from different schools met to organize. On February 1st, 1960, four black college students sat at a Woolworth’s lunch counter, from 11am to 3pm, waiting, studying, doing school work, and not moving. The sit-in was a purely non-violent protest. No one participated in a sit-in without seriousness of purpose. The instructions were simple: sit quietly and wait to be served. Often the participants would be jeered and threatened by local customers. Sometimes they would be pelted with food or ketchup. Angry onlookers tried to provoke fights that never came. In the event of a physical attack, the student would curl up into a ball on the floor and take the punishment. Any violent reprisal would undermine the spirit of the sit-in. When the local police came to arrest the demonstrators, another line of students would take the vacated seats. Within 2 days, a group of 60 students became involved, occupying every seat at Woolworths, from the start ‘til the end of the day. The KKK came to harass the students. But the effort swelled, spreading to Kress, Walgreens and other Greensboro restaurants. The sit-ins continued until July, when the majority of national drug store chains the national drugstore chains agree to serve all “properly dressed and well behaved people,” regardless of race. Triggered by the Greensboro sit-in, sit-ins occurred in 30 communities in 7 states including Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina and Florida. Counters at Woolworths, SH Kress, Katz, McCrory’s, Rexall and other national chains were targeted. All totaled, 70000 students participated in the sit-ins, even though many were beaten and 3600 were arrested.

[sheshe2]

16. Thank you, qwlauren.

Thanks for the additional information of the national sit-in. I knew some of the details but not the full scope of the protests.