Sit-ins

by Cornelius Williams

    This article is about a sit-in that happened first in Greensboro, North Carolina. When it happened, it caught America's attention. Four college students went to Woolworth's lunch counter. They gave the white cashier their money and the white people wouldn't serve them. The white people didn't serve them because they were black and were at a white lunch counter. These were the days of segregation. The students then requested service. They stayed at the lunch counter until it got ready to close, then they left. From then on they did sit-ins everyday. People from all over the world did sit-ins after that.

One of the strongest movements was in Nashville, Tennessee. It didn't gain attention until the 1960s when the civil rights movement gained momentum. In Nashville, the police force was white, and blacks and whites were segregated. They had segregated waiting rooms, water fountains, snack counters, libraries, facility rooms, hotels, restaurants, and segregated neighborhoods. The blacks decided to do something about this.

On March 28, 1958 the SCLC had a workshop for nonviolence against segregation. Diane Nash and other people bought goods and went to Woolworthís lunch counter and sat down. They decided to desegregate lunch counters. After 1960 other college students who believed in desegregation were trained to march in protest . For the next 3 months they did sit-ins. They thought it out and formed a group called SNCC. The message got back to the Mayor Ben West. Ben West decided to have the whitesí counter on one side and the blacksí counter on the other side. He too believed in segregation. Diane Nash and company marched to the city hall to meet Mayor Ben West. He finally desegregated. Nashville was the first city to begin desegregating its public buildings.