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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1960s 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 nonviolent 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.

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1. 1960 Passive resistance (Lunch Counter Sit-ins) On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at the lunch counter inside a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their actions led to similar sit-ins at Woolworth’s and other stores with segregated lunch counters across the nation. Most of the Woolworth stores abandoned their segregation policies by the end of July, 1960, although some held out until 1965. Description "Nationwide protest against lunch counter segregation in south spread to Valley as these pickets marched before Woolworth Store at 8425 Van Nuys Blvd., in Panorama City. Demonstration scheduled by officers of National Association for Advancement of Colored People. Approximately 30 persons marched for six hour [sic]."
2. 1960 Sit-in movement sparks social change Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Students wait in vain at a Greensboro Woolsworth's in April 1960. Greensboro News & Record/AP Woolworth's temporarily closed a store in Atlanta after Harold Sprayberry sprayed insect repellant above the heads of nearly 100 sit-in protesters in October 1960. He was arrested, and the store reopened about an hour later. Horace Cort/AP People poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over the heads of Tougaloo College students who were conducting a sit-in at a Woolsworth's in Jackson, Mississippi, in May 1963. Sitting at the counter, from left, are Tougaloo professor John Salter and students Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News/AP A police officer in Birmingham, Alabama, frisks a demonstrator after an attempted sit-in on April 15, 1963. AP Protesters fill a jail cell in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1963. A year later, the Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination in public places and facilities and banned discrimination based on race, gender, religion or national origin. The News & Observer
3. 1960 Tolerance Training for Sit-ins Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
5. 1960s 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 nonviolent 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.
6. 1963 Anne Moody, who later wrote Coming of Age in Mississippi, participated in a Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in. On May 28, 1963, Anne Moody was among the students from historically black Tougaloo College who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Miss. A white mob attacked the integrated group of peaceful students, dousing them with ketchup, mustard and sugar and beating one of the men. A photograph from the sit-in shows Moody sitting stoically at the five-and-dime counter with food on her head. Moody’s eyes are downcast as a man pours more food on one of her fellow students, Joan Trumpauer. Moody wrote in her 1968 memoir that “all hell broke loose” after she and two other black students, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis, prayed at the lunch counter.
7. 1964 Bertha Gilbert taken by police at lunch counter in Nashville - Extracted from Op-Ed: Learning from the Nashville model of social change - LA times Article by Reverend Lawson
8. Trainers in Petersburg Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Imageshttps://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/us/gallery/tbt-civil-rights-sit-ins/index.html
9. Photo of Greensboro Four
10. Trainers in Petersburg Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Imageshttps://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/us/gallery/tbt-civil-rights-sit-ins/index.html
Contents of this path:
1. 1960 Passive resistance (Lunch Counter Sit-ins) On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at the lunch counter inside a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their actions led to similar sit-ins at Woolworth’s and other stores with segregated lunch counters across the nation. Most of the Woolworth stores abandoned their segregation policies by the end of July, 1960, although some held out until 1965. Description "Nationwide protest against lunch counter segregation in south spread to Valley as these pickets marched before Woolworth Store at 8425 Van Nuys Blvd., in Panorama City. Demonstration scheduled by officers of National Association for Advancement of Colored People. Approximately 30 persons marched for six hour [sic]."
2. 1960 Sit-in movement sparks social change Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Students wait in vain at a Greensboro Woolsworth's in April 1960. Greensboro News & Record/AP Woolworth's temporarily closed a store in Atlanta after Harold Sprayberry sprayed insect repellant above the heads of nearly 100 sit-in protesters in October 1960. He was arrested, and the store reopened about an hour later. Horace Cort/AP People poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over the heads of Tougaloo College students who were conducting a sit-in at a Woolsworth's in Jackson, Mississippi, in May 1963. Sitting at the counter, from left, are Tougaloo professor John Salter and students Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News/AP A police officer in Birmingham, Alabama, frisks a demonstrator after an attempted sit-in on April 15, 1963. AP Protesters fill a jail cell in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1963. A year later, the Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination in public places and facilities and banned discrimination based on race, gender, religion or national origin. The News & Observer
3. 1960 Tolerance Training for Sit-ins Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
5. 1960s 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 nonviolent 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.
6. 1963 Anne Moody, who later wrote Coming of Age in Mississippi, participated in a Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in. On May 28, 1963, Anne Moody was among the students from historically black Tougaloo College who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Miss. A white mob attacked the integrated group of peaceful students, dousing them with ketchup, mustard and sugar and beating one of the men. A photograph from the sit-in shows Moody sitting stoically at the five-and-dime counter with food on her head. Moody’s eyes are downcast as a man pours more food on one of her fellow students, Joan Trumpauer. Moody wrote in her 1968 memoir that “all hell broke loose” after she and two other black students, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis, prayed at the lunch counter.
7. 1964 Bertha Gilbert taken by police at lunch counter in Nashville - Extracted from Op-Ed: Learning from the Nashville model of social change - LA times Article by Reverend Lawson
8. Trainers in Petersburg Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Imageshttps://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/us/gallery/tbt-civil-rights-sit-ins/index.html
9. Photo of Greensboro Four
10. Trainers in Petersburg Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 2, 1960. A day earlier, four African-American college students made history when they sat at the same Woolsworth's counter. Service never came for the "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, and their peaceful demonstration drew national attention and sparked more sit-ins in Southern cities. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images People protest outside a Woolsworth's in Pittsburgh. Charles 'Teenie' Harris/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images Dion Diamond is harassed during a sit-in at the Cherrydale Drug Fair in Arlington, Virginia. He was part of a small group called the Non-Violent Action Group. Some people threw lit cigarettes at group members, while others kicked them. The two-week protests in June 1960 led to the integration of restaurants in Arlington. Restaurants soon followed in nearby Alexandria and Fairfax. Gus Chinn/Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washington Star Collection/Washington Post Activists would often undergo tolerance training to prepare themselves for what they might encounter during a sit-in. Here, NAACP student adviser David Gunter, left, and Leroy Hill blow smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images Trainers in Petersburg, Virginia, use newspapers to swat volunteers in the head and prepare them for harassment they might encounter during a sit-in. Howard Sochurek/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Imageshttps://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/us/gallery/tbt-civil-rights-sit-ins/index.html

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Contents of this tag:
1. 1960 Lunch Counter Sit Ins (Woolworths) Sit-In Begins Blair, Richmond, McCain and McNeil planned their protest carefully, and enlisted the help of a local white businessman, Ralph Johns, to put their plan into action. On February 1, 1960, the four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, where the official policy was to refuse service to anyone but whites. Denied service, the four young men refused to give up their seats. Police arrived on the scene but were unable to take action due to the lack of provocation. By that time, Johns had already alerted the local media, who had arrived in full force to cover the events on television. The Greensboro Four stayed put until the store closed, then returned the next day with more students from local colleges.
2. Photo of Greensboro Four
3. 1960s 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 nonviolent 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.