Atlanta sit-ins | |
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Part of the Sit-in movement in the Civil Rights Movement | |
Date | March 15, 1960 – March 7, 1961 (11 months, 2 weeks and 6 days) |
Location | |
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The Atlanta sit-ins were a series of sit-ins that took place in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Occurring during the sit-in movement of the larger civil rights movement, the sit-ins were organized by the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, which consisted of students from the Atlanta University Center. The sit-ins were inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins, which had started a month earlier in Greensboro, North Carolina with the goal of desegregating the lunch counters in the city. The Atlanta protests lasted for almost a year before an agreement was made to desegregate the lunch counters in the city.
In February 1960, during the civil rights movement in the United States, four African American college students refused to leave their seats at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, starting the Greensboro sit-ins. These sit-ins inspired similar activity in other cities throughout the Southern United States, collectively referred to as the sit-in movement. In Atlanta, student activists from the city's six historically black colleges and universities began to organize and discuss possible protest activity in the city. Student leaders Julian Bond and Lonnie C. King Jr. (both students at Morehouse College) [1] pushed for similar sit-in action in the city. However, before any activity commenced, the student leaders were called before a meeting of the Council of Presidents of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), who officially endorsed the sit-in activity, but urged the student leaders to announce their plans in writing beforehand. [2] Shortly thereafter, the students formed the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR, led by King and Spelman College student Herschelle Sullivan) and wrote An Appeal for Human Rights, which was published in The Atlanta Constitution , the Atlanta Daily World , and The Atlanta Journal on March 9, 1960. In the document, the students outlined their opposition to segregation and their plans to "use every legal and nonviolent means at our disposal to secure full citizenship rights as members of this great Democracy of ours.” [2] [1] The appeal was attacked by Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver as a "left wing statement... calculated to breed dissatisfaction, discontent, discord, and evil," and Georgia's two U.S. Senators (Herman Talmadge and Richard Russell Jr.) both also opposed the sit-ins. [3] Meanwhile, Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield thanked the students for voicing their opinions, but took no immediate steps to address the problems they brought up. [2]
The sit-ins began on March 15, [4] about a week after the publishing of the appeal. [2] At 11 a.m. that day, approximately 200 students targeted numerous establishments across the city, including cafeterias in the Atlanta City Hall, the Fulton County Courthouse, and the Georgia State Capitol. Additionally, Morehouse students Charles Black and A. D. King (a brother of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.) led students to the cafeteria at Terminal Station. [1] Overall, ten lunch counters and cafeterias across the city were targeted, [2] with 77 of the 200 involved students arrested, including Black and Bond. [1] Despite this, the sit-ins remained peaceful, with the organizers calling them a success and temporarily suspending them during negotiations with representatives from Atlanta's business community. However, the business representatives were unwilling to compromise, and sit-ins continued until May, when they were more or less suspended due to summer vacation. During this time, little progress was made. [2]
Protest planning started again in late summer 1960 after classes at the colleges were back in session. COAHR decided to postpone the sit-ins until October in order to coincide with the 1960 United States presidential election, hoping to bring national attention to the protests. [2] Additionally, there had been developments the previous spring that would affect the next round of sit-ins. In April 1960, civil rights activist Ella Baker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had talked to student activists in North Carolina and helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), [5] which would establish their headquarters in Atlanta in the fall. [1] Following this, the COAHR would work in conjunction with the SNCC, [2] with plans to hold larger protests in the city. [1]
In early October, Lonnie King asked Martin Luther King Jr. (no relation) if he could participate in the sit-ins, hoping that his presence would increase attention on the protests. Martin agreed, and on October 19, he participated in a massive wave of sit-ins across the city. Martin and Lonnie went to the lunch counter inside Rich's department store, where both of them were promptly arrested. [2] [1] In total, 50 protestors, including A. D. King, were arrested during the first day of protests. [2] Martin Luther King's arrest drew national attention, [1] and this attention may have contributed to increased protest turnout, with over 2,000 protestors performing sit-ins at 16 locations the following day. [2] Protests continued into the next month, and on Black Friday of that year, AUC students were joined by some white students from Agnes Scott College and Emory University. The next day, about 100 members of the Ku Klux Klan, dressed in their regalia, held a counter protest in front of Rich's. [1]
The sit-ins continued throughout the holiday shopping season, and by the end of the year, a report noted that there had been a 13% decrease in sales that year compared to 1959, indicating that the sit-ins were having an economic impact. [2] The following year, the protest leaders announced a new plan to overcrowd the jails, with over 100 protestors arrested in February. [6] Around this time, Sullivan announced that COAHR was planning to extend the protests until at least Easter and were additionally seeking help from U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in desegregating the city. On February 19, a planned rally at the county jail was called off by COAHR after A. T. Walden and William Holmes Borders, prominent leaders in the black community at that time, instead asked protest leaders to meet with them at Wheat Street Baptist Church to discuss the future of the protests. Following this, Walden began to negotiate with business officials (including Atlanta Chamber of Commerce leader Ivan Allen Jr.) regarding terms for an end to the protest. [7] On March 7, Lonnie King and Sullivan attended a meeting where they were told that an agreement had been reached wherein lunch counters and restaurants would be desegregated after the public schools were integrated in Fall of that year in exchange for an end to the sit-ins. Student leaders were unhappy with the terms of the agreement, in particular the fact that the desegregation would not be immediate. [2] In anger, King Sr. told Lonnie King, "Boy, I'm tired of you! This is the best agreement that we can get out of this". [8] The students ultimately acquiesced, and the sit-ins ended. [2] The agreement, while lauded by The Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Daily World, was considered unpopular among many African Americans in Atlanta. [9]
One notable effect of the sit-ins in Atlanta was the straining of the relationship between the established black elite in the city, who were more conservative in their approach to the civil rights movement, and younger activists who were more assertive and less willing to compromise. For instance, older leaders in Atlanta had originally been opposed to the sit-ins, [4] and King Sr. had been opposed to his son's involvement with the sit-ins. [10] On March 10, a meeting was held at Warren Memorial Methodist Church, attended by about 1,500 people, to discuss the agreement. There, notable leaders such as Borders, King Sr., and Walden were criticized and heckled by many, leading King Jr. to give an address promoting unity. [2]
In October 1961, following the integration of the school system, the lunch counters and restaurants in Atlanta were desegregated. By this point, over 100 cities throughout the Southern United States had already desegregated their eateries, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia highlights later sit-in actions in Savannah and Rome, Georgia to argue that "Atlanta actually lagged behind many of its neighbors in desegregating local institutions". According to historian Stephen Tuck, desegregation in the city would remain "piecemeal and sporadic" until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [2]
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to move unless their demands are met. The often clearly visible demonstrations are intended to spread awareness among the public, or disrupt the goings-on of the protested organisation. Lunch counter sit-ins were a nonviolent form of protest used to oppose segregation during the civil rights movement, and often provoked heckling and violence from those opposed to their message.
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in February to July 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store—now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—in Greensboro, North Carolina, which led to the F. W. Woolworth Company department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. While not the first sit-in of the civil rights movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, and also the best-known sit-ins of the civil rights movement. They are considered a catalyst to the subsequent sit-in movement, in which 70,000 people participated. This sit-in was a contributing factor in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a protest to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and its emphasis on disciplined nonviolence. It was part of a broader sit-in movement that spread across the southern United States in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina.
The Albany Movement was a desegregation and voters' rights coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. This movement was founded by local black leaders and ministers, as well as members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The groups were assisted by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). It was meant to draw attention to the brutally enforced racial segregation practices in Southwest Georgia. However, many leaders in SNCC were fundamentally opposed to King and the SCLC's involvement. They felt that a more democratic approach aimed at long-term solutions was preferable for the area other than King's tendency towards short-term, authoritatively-run organizing.
Jibreel Khazan is a civil rights activist who is best known as a member of the Greensboro Four, a group of African American college students who, on February 1, 1960, sat down at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina challenging the store's policy of denying service to non-white customers. The protests and the subsequent events were major milestones in the Civil Rights Movement.
Douglas E. Moore was a Methodist minister who organized the 1957 Royal Ice Cream Sit-in in Durham, North Carolina. Moore entered the ministry at a young age. After finding himself dissatisfied with what he perceived as a lack of action among his divinity peers, he decided to take a more activist course. Shortly after becoming a pastor in Durham, Moore decided to challenge the city's power structure via the Royal Ice Cream Sit-in, a protest in which he and several others sat down in the white section of an ice cream parlor and asked to be served. The sit-in failed to challenge segregation in the short run, and Moore's actions provoked a myriad of negative reactions from many white and African-American leaders, who considered his efforts far too radical. Nevertheless, Moore continued to press forward with his agenda of activism.
Clara Shepard Luper was a civic leader, schoolteacher, and pioneering leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. She is best known for her leadership role in the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-in movement, as she, her young son and daughter, and numerous young members of the NAACP Youth Council successfully conducted carefully planned nonviolent sit-in protests of downtown drugstore lunch-counters, which overturned their policies of segregation. The success of this sit-in would result in Luper becoming a leader of various sit-ins throughout Oklahoma City between 1958 and 1964. The Clara Luper Corridor is a streetscape and civic beautification project from the Oklahoma Capitol area east to northeast Oklahoma City. In 1972, Clara Luper was an Oklahoma candidate for election to the United States Senate. When asked by the press if she, a black woman, could represent white people, she responded: “Of course, I can represent white people, black people, red people, yellow people, brown people, and polka dot people. You see, I have lived long enough to know that people are people.”
The Atlanta Student Movement was formed in February 1960 in Atlanta by students of the campuses Atlanta University Center (AUC). It was led by the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR) and was part of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR) was a group of Atlanta University Center students formed in February 1960. The committee drafted and published An Appeal for Human Rights on March 9, 1960. Six days after publication of the document, students in Atlanta united to start the Atlanta Student Movement and initiated the Atlanta sit-ins in order to demand racial desegregation as part of the Civil Rights Movement. Early members of the group include, among others, Lonnie King, Julian Bond, Herschelle Sullivan, Carolyn Long, Joseph Pierce.
Lonnie C. King Jr. was an American civil rights leader. Beginning in 1960, he launched the Atlanta Student Movement, wrote the Appeal for Human Rights, and subsequently started the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights. His work led to the desegregation of Atlanta and continued advocacy has brought further education to America regarding present-day racism and the struggles of the civil rights movement.
The Dockum Drug Store sit-in was one of the first organized lunch counter sit-ins for the purpose of integrating segregated establishments in the United States. The protest began on July 19, 1958 in downtown Wichita, Kansas, at a Dockum Drug Store, in which protesters would sit at the counter all day until the store closed, ignoring taunts from counter-protesters. The sit-in ended three weeks later when the owner relented and agreed to serve black patrons. Though it wasn't the first sit-in, it is notable for happening before the well known 1960 Greensboro sit-ins.
The Richmond 34 refers to a group of Virginia Union University students who participated in a nonviolent sit-in at the lunch counter of Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond, Virginia. The event was one of many sit-ins to occur throughout the civil rights movement in the 1960s and was essential to helping desegregate the city of Richmond.
The Royal Ice Cream sit-in was a nonviolent protest in Durham, North Carolina, that led to a court case on the legality of segregated facilities. The demonstration took place on June 23, 1957 when a group of African American protesters, led by Reverend Douglas E. Moore, entered the Royal Ice Cream Parlor and sat in the section reserved for white patrons. When asked to move, the protesters refused and were arrested for trespassing. The case was appealed unsuccessfully to the County and State Superior Courts.
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The sit-in movement, sit-in campaign, or student sit-in movement, was a wave of sit-ins that followed the Greensboro sit-ins on February 1, 1960, led by students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical Institute (A&T). The sit-in movement employed the tactic of nonviolent direct action and was a pivotal event during the Civil Rights Movement.
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