Protests and court decisions won modest success integrating schools and public transportation, but in 1960 restaurants, theaters, libraries, parks, and churches either barred or continued to restrict access by African Americans. Where separate facilities existed, they were never equal to those for whites. Black customers felt the injustice when southern stores welcomed their dollars, then denied them the same courtesies given to white patrons. Nowhere was this contradiction so glaring as at lunch counters in five-and-dime and department stores. Most forbade blacks from sitting; some stores furnished separate counters, without seats.

On February 1, 1960 four North Carolina A & T college students sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro. They read books until closing time and returned the next day to do the same. Their protest received media attention and sparked sit-ins across the South.

CORE and SCLC helped train students, but students organized their own efforts and made up most of the protesters. As the number of sit-ins increased, violence erupted. The success of sit-ins depended on the protesters ability to resist the temptation to fight back. Sit-ins desegregated many counters but also often led to the jailing of student protestors. Students from Nashville's four historically black colleges formed the Nashville Nonviolent Movement to organize the sit-ins.

Ella Baker of the SCLC sought to strengthen the alliance between student activists and clergy-based organizations by forming a student branch. This offshoot became the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. SNCC played a leading role in voter registration, the March on Washington, and Freedom Summer.

Black students forced change with their own grassroots action, and by so doing pumped new life into the civil rights movement. The students' appeal to America's conscience proved that organized direct action could bring about rapid changes. The gains extended well beyond lunch counters to hotels, parks, swimming pools, restaurants, and jobs - anywhere that denied blacks equal access.

People to Know:
Ella Baker
Diane Nash
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Nashville Movement
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