[Vision2020] Fifty Years Ago Yesterday (February 1, 1960)

[Tom Hansen]

Nonviolent Direct Action at Southern Lunch Counters
by Sean O'Mara

On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural
and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina walked into a
Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This
seemingly mundane everyday act sent shock waves through Greensboro,
through North Carolina, and throughout the nation. The counter behind
which these four young men sat was for whites only.

This simple act was like a stone thrown into a still pond. It sent out
ripples across the nation that stirred people to take notice and to act.
As the news of lunch-counter sit-ins spread, it opened eyes, inspired more
to join the protests, and agitated some Americans into violence. Most
importantly, it forced communities throughout the United States to
confront segregation right where they sat down for a cup of coffee or tuna
fish sandwich.

The sit-ins were a part of the nonviolent direct action strategy espoused
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1955, nonviolent direct action had been
successfully used in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycotts. Led by Dr. King
and Rosa Parks, the black citizens of Montgomery had desegregated the
city’s public buses. In the early 1960s, black college students throughout
the South would put this strategy into action in an attempt to desegregate
lunch counters.

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A picture of the Greensboro Four.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/09/0909001r.jpg

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown