Greensboro and the sit-in movement

in the South affected many aspects of black people's daily lives. Many of the lunch counters in the South were segregated. For example, in Woolworth department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, there was a stand-up lunch counter for black people and a sit-down lunch counter for white people. On 1 February 1960, four black students decided to challenge the segregated service.

The students bought some items from the department store and then went to sit at the white lunch counter. They were refused service and the manager tried, unsuccessfully, to have them arrested. They remained in their seats until the store closed.

News of the sit-in at Woolworth’s spread around North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, so more students joined them the next day. After a few days, the lunch counter was filled with black students. As their story made it onto the television and into the newspapers, a large number of sit-ins followed around the South.

Civil rights organisations

The sit-ins, started by people who became known as the ‘Greensboro Four’, were supported by the major civil rights organisations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , the Congress of Racial Equality and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . They helped to establish a sit-in headquarters, where plans for could be coordinated. Actions like sit-ins or refusing to give up seats on segregated transport were carried out to challenge restrictions on civil rights. As a result of the large number of students involved, a new organisation also emerged.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Ella Baker, from the SCLC, set up a meeting in 1960 to encourage the students who had joined the civil rights campaign. At that meeting, she helped the students to found an organisation, separate from the SCLC, called the . Baker asked the students to work together as a group, rather than rely on strong leaders. This, she hoped, would encourage them to focus on work that would improve civil rights for the majority of their membership.

The SNCC, which included white and black students, focused on two things in its early years:

voter registration - the SNCC was a key part of the Freedom Summer
direct action - the SNCC members took part in sit-ins

The impact of sit-ins

Sit-ins were an example of non-violent direct action. They were held across North Carolina and the South. The largest number of sit-ins was held in Nashville, Tennessee, where students were coached to ensure the success of their sit-ins. They were usually carried out by young black people, but a large number of white people also joined in.

At lunch counters across Nashville, black students who held sit-ins responded calmly to the violence and abuse they received. Then, if they were arrested, they stayed in jail rather than accept . This way, they hoped to overwhelm jails.

There was considerable media coverage of the sit-ins, especially when some white customers reacted violently to them. Owners were forced to make changes and Nashville became the first city to start of its lunch counters.

The sit-ins were very successful and won huge support for the campaigners. Even President Dwight D Eisenhower expressed his support for the campaign. By the end of 1960, over 120 cities and towns in the South had desegregated their lunch counters. Others soon followed.

Overall, the sit-ins in the early 1960s:

involved around 70,000 taking action
brought an end to a blatant example of this public form of
marked the start of a period of many highly effective student protests in the 1960s
were the first time white Americans in large numbers openly joined in protests by black Americans

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Peaceful protest in the 1960s - EdexcelGreensboro and the sit-in movement