Sit-Ins by the Civil Rights Movement1960 ppt.pptx

Sit-ins by the Civil Rights Movement 1960

1. Sit-ins 1 February 1960

2. In many Southern towns, facilities were segregated. Lunch counters in department stores were segregated. Some young people decided to protest against this arrangement. The first sit-in occurred at the white lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this store, blacks would be served take-aways but were not allowed to sit and eat. Four black students at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College sat down at the counter. Their names were Ezell Blair Jnr, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil on 1 February 1960.

3. Reaction The owner, Clarence Harris, ordered his staff to leave the protestors alone and not to serve them. The next day the original four were joined by 27 other protestors (four of whom were women) and on 4 February, 300 protestors had gathered.

4. Reaction continued The store was closed down for two weeks and the protest spread to other states. Most protests were peaceful, but occasionally violence broke out, as it did in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

5. Nashville students The Nashville students were trained in non-violence and ignored insults and other provocative behaviour from disapproving whites. After about two weeks of sit-ins, whites attacked the protestors and the protestors were arrested. They were sentenced to a month in prison. Nevertheless, the sit-ins continued.

6. SNCC and SCLC The Student Non-violent Co-Ordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed in April 1960 with the help of Ella Barker from the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) to co-ordinate the sit-in protests.

7. Jackson, Mississippi A sit-in protest on 28 May 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi became violent when racist white people harassed the protestors by pouring mustard, sugar and tomato-sauce over them. Ann Moody, seated on the far right wrote about this in her autobiography called Coming of Age in Mississippi.

8. Boycott of white-owned businesses At Easter 1960, the civil rights activists in Nashville launched a boycott of white-owned downtown businesses. This action spread to other cities and was well supported by black people. After the house of a prominent black lawyer was bomber, about 4000 black people came out and marched through the town. Faced with public pressure, the mayor, Ben West, came out publically in support of the principle of desegregated facilities.

9. More visuals

10. More visuals

11. Desegregation On 26 July 1960, the Greensboro Woolworth’s store finally desegregated it’s lunch counter. Eventually all the stores followed suit.

12. Success

13. Content from Focus and Spot On History