Civil rights movement

=== Sit-ins, 1958–1960 ===
{{See also|Greensboro sit-ins|Nashville sit-ins|Sit-in movement}}

In July 1958, the [[NAACP Youth Council]] sponsored sit-ins at the lunch counter of a [[Dockum Drug Store sit-in|Dockum Drug Store]] in downtown [[Wichita, Kansas]]. After three weeks, the movement successfully got the store to change its policy of segregated seating, and soon afterward all Dockum stores in Kansas were desegregated. This movement was quickly followed in the same year by a [[Katz Drug Store sit-in|student sit-in at a Katz Drug Store]] in [[Oklahoma City]] led by [[Clara Luper]], which also was successful.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355095 "Kansas Sit-In Gets Its Due at Last"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421030703/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355095 |date=April 21, 2018 }}; NPR; October 21, 2006</ref>

[[File:Civil Rights protesters and Woolworth's Sit-In, Durham, NC, 10 February 1960. From the N&O Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Photos taken by The News & (24495308926).jpg|thumb|Student sit-in at Woolworth in [[Durham, North Carolina]] on February 10, 1960.]]

Mostly black students from area colleges led a sit-in at a [[F. W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth]]'s store in [[Greensboro, North Carolina]].<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro First Southern Sit-in, Greensboro NC] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> On February 1, 1960, four students, [[Ezell A. Blair Jr.]], David Richmond, [[Joseph McNeil]], and [[Franklin McCain]] from [[North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University|North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College]], an all-black college, sat down at the segregated lunch counter to protest Woolworth's policy of excluding African Americans from being served food there.<ref name="chafe">{{Cite book |last=Chafe |first=William Henry |title=Civilities and civil rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black struggle for freedom |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1980 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/civilitiescivilr00chaf/page/81 81] |url=https://archive.org/details/civilitiescivilr00chaf |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-19-502625-2}}</ref> The four students purchased small items in other parts of the store and kept their receipts, then sat down at the lunch counter and asked to be served. After being denied service, they produced their receipts and asked why their money was good everywhere else at the store, but not at the lunch counter.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/busdesegsitins.aspx |title=Civil Rights Greensboro |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=June 30, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140630033454/http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/busdesegsitins.aspx}}</ref>

The protesters had been encouraged to dress professionally, to sit quietly, and to occupy every other stool so that potential white sympathizers could join in. The Greensboro sit-in was quickly followed by other sit-ins in [[Richmond, Virginia]];<ref>{{cite web |title=60 years ago, the Richmond 34 were arrested during a sit-in at the Thalhimers lunch counter |url=https://www.richmond.com/from-the-archives/years-ago-the-richmond-were-arrested-during-a-sit-in/collection_6680a266-17e4-5c38-b6e9-5efb6aa69852.html |website=Richmond Times-Dispatch |access-date=February 20, 2020 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://southernspaces.org/2008/rising |title=Rising Up |journal=Southern Spaces |first=Stations, Community |last=I |date=January 1, 2008 |volume=2008 |access-date=July 29, 2016 |doi=10.18737/M7HP4M|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Nashville, Tennessee]]; and Atlanta, Georgia.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960atlanta Atlanta Sit-ins] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960atlanta |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Archive</ref><ref name="Atlanta Sit-Ins">[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 "Atlanta Sit-Ins"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117053611/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 |date=January 17, 2013 }}, ''The New Georgia Encyclopedia''</ref> The most immediately effective of these was in Nashville, where hundreds of well organized and highly disciplined college students [[Nashville sit-ins|conducted sit-ins]] in coordination with a boycott campaign.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City |first=Benjamin |last=Houston |year=2012 |location=Athens |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-4326-6}}</ref><ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960nsm Nashville Student Movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960nsm |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>
As students across the south began to "sit-in" at the lunch counters of local stores, police and other officials sometimes used brutal force to physically escort the demonstrators from the lunch facilities.

The "sit-in" technique was not new{{mdash}}as far back as 1939, African-American attorney [[Samuel Wilbert Tucker]] organized a sit-in at the then-segregated [[Alexandria, Virginia]], library.<ref>{{cite web |title=America's First Sit-Down Strike: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In |url=http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html |publisher=City of Alexandria |access-date=February 11, 2010  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528015924/http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html |archive-date=May 28, 2010 }}</ref> In 1960 the technique succeeded in bringing national attention to the movement.<ref name="davis">{{Cite book |last=Davis |first=Townsend |title=Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=1998 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town/page/311 311] |url=https://archive.org/details/wearyfeetresteds00town |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-393-04592-5}}</ref>
On March 9, 1960, an [[Atlanta University Center]] group of students released [[An Appeal for Human Rights]] as a full-page advertisement in newspapers, including the ''Atlanta Constitution'', ''Atlanta Journal'', and ''Atlanta Daily World''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615 |title=Atlanta Sit-ins |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=January 17, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117053611/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3615}}</ref> Known as the [[Committee on Appeal for Human Rights]] (COAHR), the group initiated the [[Atlanta Student Movement]] and began to lead sit-ins starting on March 15, 1960.<ref name="Atlanta Sit-Ins" /><ref>[http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=3 Students Begin to Lead] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160113134157/http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=3 |date=January 13, 2016 }}&nbsp;– The New Georgia Encyclopedia{{snd}}Atlanta Sit-Ins</ref> By the end of 1960, the process of sit-ins had spread to every southern and [[Border states (American Civil War)|border state]], and even to facilities in [[Nevada]], [[Illinois]], and [[Ohio]] that discriminated against blacks.

Demonstrators focused not only on lunch counters but also on parks, beaches, libraries, theaters, museums, and other public facilities. In April 1960 activists who had led these sit-ins were invited by SCLC activist [[Ella Baker]] to hold a conference at [[Shaw University]], a [[historically black university]] in [[Raleigh, North Carolina]]. This conference led to the formation of the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC).<ref name="carson">{{Cite book |last=Carson |first=Clayborne |title=In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1981 |location=Cambridge |page=311 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fm9v7KKj_UQC |isbn=978-0-674-44727-1}}</ref> SNCC took these tactics of nonviolent confrontation further, and organized the freedom rides. As the constitution protected interstate commerce, they decided to challenge segregation on interstate buses and in public bus facilities by putting interracial teams on them, to travel from the North through the segregated South.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sncc Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founded] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070306200430/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sncc |date=March 6, 2007 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>