African American

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.