Sitting Down for Justice

Civil Disobedience demands action while at the same time restraining from violence. It’s a careful balance that only a saint could pull off. And the fact that the Civil Rights movement didn’t descend into chaos and civil war is a miracle. Imagine the kind of inner strength and courage it must have taken not to punch out the guy who had just spat in your face.   

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In 1960, four North Carolina college students took up the torch of civil disobedience and sparked a firestorm that would sweep throughout the South. Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Joseph McNeil got dressed up in their finest clothes, walked into Woolworth’s lunch counter and ordered a cup of coffee. The waitress refused to serve them saying: “we don’t serve colored here”. That was it. Just four guys who decided ‘we aren’t going to take this anymore’. The simple act of sitting on a ‘whites-only’ stool was a dangerous move. The Greensboro Four knew that other sit-ins in places like Kansas and Oklahoma had failed and ended in the arrest and beating of protesters. And jail for a black man accused of attacking white supremacy was a dangerous place. But for McCain, the risk was worth it “fifteen seconds after… I had the most wonderful feeling, I had a feeling of liberation, of restored manhood…”

 

The movement was full of irony. On the first day of the Greensboro protesters, it was a black customer who called the men “foolish” and “ignorant”. Franklin McCain recalled an older white woman who sat at the counter while the four were staging their silent protest. McCain recalled her walking up to them and putting her hand s on their shoulders saying “Boys, I am so proud of you…” McCain said that from this experience he “learned…don’t ever, ever stereotype anybody in this life”. The Greensboro Four didn’t get upset, they didn’t raise their voice or make demands. In fact, the more agitated the waitress got, the more polite the men became. These men were no zen masters but they were motivated by the message of civil disobedience being preached by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Their strategy was powerfully simple— fight hatred with love.  

 

The Sit-In Movement was more than just black customers asking for a cup of joe. It was about locking eyes with your oppressor and refusing to blink. Sit-In training programs sprung up that run like military boot camps. Would-be protesters had to be toughened up before they were allowed to get abused in the real world. The training centers were held on college campuses and in private homes. Using role-play instructors took on the role of hostile whites who taught the protesters to not react as they were spat on, called racial slurs, pushed, hit, had drinks poured over their heads, and roughed up in mock arrests. This might seem cruel, but the training sessions were far more gentle than the real abuse that were going suffer at the hands of people who actually wanted to do them harm. If the protesters managed to keep their cool the police would have no just cause for arresting them.

 

The next day twenty-seven students showed up at Woolworth’s and did the same thing. They also got refused service. The day after that three hundred students showed up politely asking to be served. Like a wildfire, the Sit-In Movement began spreading throughout the South. It is estimated that 70,000 people participated in sit-ins of everything from libraries and parks to swimming pools and public beaches.  Integrating these last two really fueled the rage of the white supremacists. The thought of whites and blacks sharing the same pool water was enough to drive the owner of the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida to pour a bucket of hydrochloric acid into the water as African-American protesters staged a swim-in.   

 

The Sit-In Movement had broken through the color barrier, sometimes in strange ways. White college students joined their black peers in protesting segregated facilities. Sometimes some of the biggest opposition came from other African-Americans who were scared of the backlash that might come in the form of a Klan attack.