Messages and tweets. University of massachusetts amherst assistant professor traci parker joins us for discussion on the lunch counter sit ins of 1960. Who were the greensboro four and why did they decide to sit down at that lunch counter in 1960 . They work for freshman a t were four freshman at and they had been thinking about racial injustices and how to integrate and how to push the movement along for some time. It was not until Joseph Mcneil is returning to school after when hes break in 1959 is refused a meal at a greyhound train terminal and he is just trying to buy a hot dog. And gets back to campus and he is emboldened. He says enough is enough. So him and this for friends decide they are going to target the woolworths. Aggregate eating facilities in greensboro, North Carolina. I find interesting is why it woolworths, woolworths was a five and dime that many people of a certain age probably still remember. It was a chain Discount Department store. Recognizable because it is a chain across United States to people. So there is a way in which you can recognize it and see yourself and it and if you wanted to replicate a Similar Movement you could. Also, woolworths like Many Department stores of the time operated a very contradictory policy when it came to africanamericans. They were free to enter, browse and purchase. However they were not allowed to eat at lunch counters or other eating facilities. It cannot use beauty shops. They cannot try on or return clothes. They were denied credit. They could be provide uneven or Unequal Service and any moment at the whim of a sales worker. A placerths becomes that is visible for showcasing the very visible racial segregation of the time of the country racial segregation at the time of the country and it also could be for them one of the most ideal places to visibly dismantle this system of racial injustice. Host what was the state of segregation in 1960, 6 years after round the board of education, especially in the Retail Shopping realm . Momentthis is a huge when the brown decision comes down, outline racial segregation in public schools. It overturns the 1896 plessy versus ferguson decision that stipulated separate but equal was constitutional. After the round versus board of. Ducation decision desegregation of schools is slow, extremely slow and very little is done. After brown versus board of education. We have in 1955 rosa parks initiating the bus boycott. But between 1956 and 1960 very little had changed. And there was a generation of students, and these were students who would have been the age of emmett till was brutally lynched and murdered, who had been shaped by watching the death of emmett till, and watching the montgomery bus boycott, an understanding that when they go into a store the rules for them were different. And when they want to go get something to eat, the lunch counter itself was a symbol of white supremacy. It was a symbol of how the country and how the marketplace and how the stores tried to keep them in secondclass citizenship. Our guest is an assistant professor in afro american studies at the university of massachusetts at amp hearst, thei parker talking about lunch counter and joined by our friends on cspan American History tv. Lines, on the phone 2027488000 in the eastern time zone and a special line for sit in participants or family members if you remember those sit ins, the number 2027488002 and on the east coast 2027488001. Professor parker, white did this movement become the one that gets pointed to, the greensboro protest and particular . Why was this new round of protests . This was not the first letter counter protest. There had been other lunch counterprotests going back to the 1940s and 1950s. Guest they are at a heller store, meant they are a historical moment and theres an energy and desire for immediacy among these young people guest we are in a moment after the Second World War and the economy is prosperous. Locatedamericans have two urban centers and they are more they are earning wages and making more money and they are more educated the time is ripe. Then we have the emmett till in montgomery bus boycott. Tragediesus both the of the movement, the realities and everyday realities for African Americans. Also the possibilities. Of a movement. So for those Young Students i think they were tired. They were frustrated. Fourw the greensboro mentioned they were not only motivated by the death of emmett till, and the montgomery bus boycott, but king had come to speak at their college in 1958. Listening to him speak about nonviolence, and listening to him speak about the injustices of the world, really motivated these young men. And they were not alone. While they are having this conversation at their university, the women over at bennett college, a historically black Womens College, they are is an energy and a conversation going on and this seems to be the moment in which to do it. We are also at a moment where the federal government is arguably more supportive of civil rights that it had been probably since the reconstruction, those years between 18551877. Host how long did the greensboro sit in last and how much attention did it get at the time and how did it start spreading to other cities . Guest it lasted six months and ended july 25. It ends after woolworths lunch counter has lost approximately 200,000 which would be equivalent to 2 million today. They decide to finally integrate, while the College Students are on summer break. When that College Students left on summer break it was black High School Students from the era who took over the reins of the movement. It kept, the intensity continued. Finally the manager of what werth decides he is going to have three of his black workers dressed in their sunday test and put on their street close, not their uniforms and sit down at the lunch counter and eat. Ideally by the time the College Students get back, thanks, business could return to normal. Host you mentioned the Womens College in greensboro and participants. Who was esther terri . Dr. Esther terri was a participant in the greensboro sit in she helped organize it at was a University Student at bennett college. Openly about how she was influenced not only by her colleagues, the women at her college, but also by her professor and the president of the university. There was a true support system at bennett college. And encouragement that they participate in this movement. So she participates and she is arrested at one point for her participation in the movement. But esther terri has gone on to be a leader of what historians call the second Student Movement whereby students were not concerned necessarily about public accommodations. This time they were concerned about integrating universities. Making sure there were more black College Students at universities, that there were more black faculty at universities. That the curriculum matches and reflects the diverse population they hope these universities will have. So she eventually moved to massachusetts after earning a master of arts degree at the University Chapel hill. And there she earned a phd in american literature. She helped found and eventually tears the wb to boy w b dubois faculty of African Market studies which i may proud faculty member of antihelped found one of the first African American studies and she helped found one of the first after American Studies Department in the United States. Host an oral history interview with the library of congress is Available Online but i want to show viewers a clip of the interview. I think it is very important to know that what werth woolworths became, and you know you cannot to down for a coke. , it wasnto woolworths not closed to black patronage. You can go in and buy anything you wanted that they sold. You just cannot sit down and get a sandwich at the lunch counter. It was the lunch counter. Cannot sit down there to eat. I think we might have been young. Because honestly i felt proud. Do not think my mother ever felt, maybe she felt proud but i think that was not her main feeling. I think she was terrified. I know that now because i have a child and i have, he is a grown men but i think as a mother i would be afraid. Im going to tell you we were proud and i was proud to sit there. I was very very proud. I will tell you something else. Ever understood the hatred that came. It was surprising because i did not understand why people would glare at us with such hatred. That was a little unnerving. But i was basically very proud to have done that. Host esther terry. In that library of Congress Oral history. Traci parker, she talked about her mother being fearful of the danger she was in. Can you talk about the reaction to the lunch counter sit ins. Guest it is mixed. When these young men first get to the lunch counter on the first day, they encounter a white waitress, who tells them we dont serve African Americans here, that white waitress gets frazzled, so she calls over a black waitress , genevieve tensed out who , quickly tells them youre making trouble and instructs them to leave. You would assume by that statement that perhaps she was antiprotester. Is,ink in reality what she is that she is scared of what could possibly happen to these young men. She is scared what could happen to herself. You see that type of sentiment going on, but increasingly as it goes on, the movement these four , men, this movement itself receives immense support from the surrounding community, from the black community. If they were not sitting in at the lunch counter i should say , and the lunch counter, this movement wasnt simply at Woolworths Department store. It eventually spread to kress, another five and dime. And so increasingly more students planning to sit in. For those who arent sitting in, it may have been their parents or their pastors, or their teachers. Those folks participate in the way of an economic boycott. So what they are doing is withholding their dollars from these stores until the stores make substantial change. And together, it is the sit in it, the notoriety of the sit in that is being televised and reported in newspapers, and it is the economic boycott that is damaging store profits and reputations that is central, its integral to making change in these places. Host professor traci parker is our guest this morning with the university of massachusetts Amherst Department of afroamerican studies. Her book, the author of Department Stores in the black Freedom Movement. Taking your questions and comments about the 1960 lunch counter sitins in this hour of the washington journal and on American History tv. Aired]usly that special line for sitin participants and family members. Bonnie is on that line out of miami. Caller i wanted to share with you a very vivid memory from when i was 14 years old, i was living in new york city, my friends and i had gone into town to see movies and shop. We came upon a large crowd outside our very popular woolworths. They were chanting and immediately i signed on, joint in the chant and i will share it with you. 4, dont go into woolworths store. Southern woolworths segregate. At that very young age, i immediately knew as a white girl this was wrong, there was something wrong with our country which unfortunately i would have to reiterate today. And the certain people who started the movement back then and succeeded of course with the integration of the lunch counters, we need them again today. Im afraid. Thank you so much. Host thank you for the memory. Traci parker. Guest i think that is a very typical story. I think its why the using a woolworths, a chain, is so important. That you could have such a broad reach from not simply the one woolworths you are protesting against, but also we could connect to others. So now you have a movement in new york city that is supportive, it is in alliance with those who were trying to integrate the public spaces in the south. Host what was core and how much involvement did National CivilRights Groups have in the lunch counter sit ins. Guest the core was the congress of racial equality. It was founded in the 1940s in chicago and one of their major tactics was actually the sit in. They had been employing the sitin in 1940s and 50s and when the greensboro sit in began, its local naacps members who call with the understanding that they have set it up. How to train students to take the attack, to stay nonviolent, to stay strong and invited them in for support. But what core is also building on which is fantastic, is a traditional black protest in the community. They are drawing not only on black protest, but also the Labor Movement. The Labor Movement had been using sit ins in the 1930s. Not only to rail against unequal, unfair employment treatment, but also to desegregate restaurants. Some of them were part of the congress of industrial organizations, the cio. Host can you talk more about how training worked and what people who were going to go and sit down of these lunch counters did and how the training was experienced . Guest i think nashville is one of the most, the students there were the most trained. They were quite meticulous in their preparation for the sit in. What they would do is they would hold classes. When i teach the sit in in my civil rights class, there is a clip in the movie the butler where the students are in a basement and they are practicing helping each other prepare. So you have someone sitting in a chair and a friend of yours is going to act like they are a counter protester and push the chair, spit on you, call you racial epithets and its to prepare one for what could happen. Right . We know from various pictures in film and television that what these protesters went through was, frankly, horrific. We had students who had hot coffee thrown in their faces, they were spit on. Milkshakes were thrown on them, they were violently beaten, they were arrested, they were preparing the students for the fact that it might not be simply physical harm or arrest. But it could end in death. Host was the idea to not react and continue the tradition of nonviolent protest . Was the whole idea to hold that chair and stay in that seat for as long as possible . Talk about the goals when it came to that training. Guest the goal was really to stay nonviolent. To adhere to these nonviolent principles that gandhi and dr. Martin luther king had been touting, because, and again this its important because of what moment we are in. Television is big. We are showing students who are dressed in their sunday best with their schoolbooks often times simply trying to get their schoolwork done. Staying polite, staying nonviolent and just taking in taking it. So, what the white segregationists, look like, what the whites look like, what they look like is, they look barbaric. Someone wanting something as simple as a coke or a sandwich results in this brutality. Arguments a convincing that africanamericans are firstclass citizens. That they are respectable, that they are dignified, that they are humans. That is the work of doing making this very visible. 1, the day the greensboro lunch counter protest began. By april of 1960, those 70 southern cities had lunch counter sit ins. Thats what were are talking about looking back 60 years to those lunch counter protests in this hour of washington journal and American History tv. Also taking your phone calls online lines split up regionally and a special line for sit in host why this form of protest in particular . Why does it affect you so much . Because it was so noble. It was exactly what our society should look like, regardless of their religion, color, anything. Martin luther king was noble. When i went to public school, we was trained ive fined so much nobility and i thought we were finding success. From todays perspective, i am very troubled. I think this sentiments you express are quite common. It is an interesting place we are in. I think what students are doing picking up on what was civil rights the movement. The tactics they are employing are very much those of the 1960s, such as picket lines and sit ins. Making their presence and voice heard. Are certainly outliers who have taken a different approach, view, the core sentiment, the core philosophy of king and his supporters and even of the young men and women who participated in lunch counter sit ins, i very much see in the protests today. Host kenneth out of milwaukee, wisconsin. You are next. Caller good morning and thanks to cspan. A hat, my hat would be off to you. I appreciate you being on the program this morning. Im originally from the south, from mississippi specifically. To bring up i want is woolworths. Im not going to go into the details about my history because im in the process of trying to write my memoirs. Came when i graduated from high school in jackson, mississippi, and my mom could not afford to send me to college. My dad had left the family. Chicago with my mothers older sister and i ended up there because she was the only one who could afford to send me to another location so i would have an opportunity to go to school. I got a job at woolworths and i thought i had died and gone to heaven because there was no such thing as a young black Woman Working at the store of any type in mississippi. Counter and the then everything on the counter was my responsibility. I felt really important and that is what got me going in life, giving me the confidence and i think thats whats happening nowadays with all the animosity toward racism, our children are losing confidence. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this morning and i hope everything works out for everyone. Host thank you for sharing your memories. Fascinated by this. I lived in chicago for many years. If you are talking about the will worth on the southside of chicago, i have pictures of home pictures at home of its own its old locations. In the south, the other part of discrimination, we speak about the discrimination between black consumers but there was discrimination against africanamerican workers. South, anorth in the africanamerican could not hold a job as a sales worker or a clerical worker. These were jobs historically reserved for white women. These were status jobs, jobs that gave people a sense of responsibility, a sense of confidence, as the caller mentioned. Some sit in movements and i evidence this happened at the greensboro sit in but there are ones like charlotte, north carroll they not only advocated for customers, but also black workers. Workers couldck be promoted from gender and cook and elevator operators to saleswomanuch as a at the candy counter or work in the clothing department. Jobs that could showcase africanamericans respectability, their intellect, they were markers of a move andrd fair employment racial equality in the marketplace. Host back on the customers side, on that experience black customers had in 1960 in Department Stores, can you talk about rules regarding trying on clothes or returning close . What did they face . Guest africanamericans were not permitted to try on clothes. They were not permitted to hold credit lines. They were not permitted to use the beauty shops. They were not permitted to use the same water fountains Many Department stores, for some folks, my students for example, it is hard for them to remember a Department Store that had every amenity you could possibly think of. So in Department Stores, there were beauty shops africanamerican women were not allowed to attend or barbershops africanamerican were not allowed to use. Typically what is going on is to shop inare able places, anyplace white americans coulded black people participate, biologically, African Americans were not allowed to participate. On the line for sid and their family members. Good morning. Iller i just wanted to say int to Morgan State College 1959, i started as a freshman there. Demonstrated at a little Shopping Center down the street. We could not eat at the counter. We could buy anything we wanted there, but we could not sit at the counter. The head company was a Department Store and we could not try on the close there. Mitchellnamed clarence whose uncle became a representative from baltimore, clarence organized us and instructed us not to interact with any of the people who would say anything to us. We had little signs that we held up. It was a wonderful experience for me. I can cry right now just thinking about it. They eventually opened up the drugstore and we could sit down youim so proud of listening to you because you are saying all the things we experienced at the time and i thank you for letting me speak. Host do you remember how long that protest lasted and how quickly you said it changed. How long did it take . Sayer i dont want to because i dont exactly i waser, but i know only there for a year and a half and then i transferred to richmond, virginia. But it opened up while i was there. Guest im from baltimore, so the story of students doing that work, i have benefited from that. So i must thank you for that. It was the northwood where students tried to integrate and were successful at doing so, but those students were very well organized. They planned everything very well. Thats another protest movement that not simply leveraged picketing and sit ins, but the use of the economic boycott. Host greensboro, North Carolina, is next. Paul is on the line for family members and participants. Caller good morning. I just wanted to chime in and say both my parents are graduates of North Carolina and my father was on the Football Team. Those guys staged their andement within that time its always amazing to me to hear my dad tell the story about being on the sidewalks and the epithets yelling as a kid, him telling me those stories, that was amazing. I remember i ended up going to the university of North Carolina, chapel hill. Iron member reading in my history book, they were talking about the Football Team outside of will worth. Remember that this is my dad. He was part of that team. I was hoping someone down the line would see that and be inspired by it. Say david richman, his son and i are good friends. We competed against each other and these are great guys and a great legacy. Guest that is wonderful to hear. Thank you for your story. Imagesre some wonderful of the Football Players helping to protect other protesters. Particularly female protesters until they could safely exit the woolworths without getting injured. I dont know if you have time, but there was some wonderful imagery used andy Football Players were very much part of that. David richmond, one of the greensboro four. Do they go on to become leaders in the wider Civil Rights Movement . It depends on how you are defining the movement. They had aree, difficult time. After the protests, they were labeled radicals. In some ways, they are blackballed from local opportunities. David richmond remained in greensboro. I believe he ended up becoming a janitor at a nursing home, refusing to leave North Carolina because his family was there. His family, his children. And areeft greensboro still around and exist. Toe of them have gone on have strong careers in the military service. That would have been joseph theres another im blanking zeal blair junior. He moved to massachusetts and some additional postgraduate schooling and became a teacher and counselor. He does oral histories. In a way, they have kept the legacy alive and have passed along their understanding of ideologyuality, their on to a subsequent generation that i would argue has been essential how we end up at a moment like this when people are employing similar tactics that we have seen in the 1960s to advance a movement that may have gotten slightly offtrack. By the 1980s. Host this is so. Thank you for waiting. Caller i want to thank cspan and American History tv for having programs like this. Professor parker, when she mentioned something about the protest going on for a long time, how long did it take from when it started until it ended . Was it continuous . What was the process . Guest the greensboro sit in began february 1 and ended july 25. It is pretty much continuous. There was a twoweek moratorium an agreement between protesters and the city. The idea is they would spend that two weeks trying to negotiate a plan of how to integrate these stores. That fails. Its a tactic that has been used for decades. We often call it the use of persuasion. With backdoor meetings management to try to create change. As a result, the protests pick up again. When the students leave for college vacation, its local High Schoolers who decide to sell their shoes and continue that movement. Its continuous, but it ebbs and flows in different ways in the use of tactics and momentum that is going on. Host on this idea from how it took how long it took from sit in this is from the oral history interview of gloria grenell of Virginia Union who participated in some of the citizens that happened, the oral history interview. I thought the world was going to change. I was so naive. Police person was so nice. I remember when i was arrested, he held my hand and helped me up into the paddy wagon. My aunt called me and said i have seen you on the news being helped into the paddy wagon. Were some students that did not participate and you are angry. I was angry because i felt they lived in virginia, they should. The first thing i remember when we got arrested, we went to a courthouse im sorry, went to jail, and they put us in a cell, all of us and it was smelly. I thought not even a clean sell. And the court was segregated. Hell . Like am i in even the courts are segregated. I. R. Number a black man came in and he was a drunkard and you could smell him. The judges have to come in . Its going downhill fast. I thought am i losing my mind . Stop i just thought now that we have set in, we have these attorneys and they are going to go to court. Longert going to be any stop you can change laws, but you cant change people when it comes to your doing. The library of Congress Oral history interview. She is right. There is for some protesters, theres a notion this would happen and there would be immediate change. There had to be some sort of consistent pressure on merchants. To ensure they held their word. So while siddons may have ended in some places, what that meant is africanamerican movement core, whether was the southern christian leadership conference, the naacp , or even sncc which had grown out of the movement, these students are doing constant check ins to ensure they are , thating the new rules they ensure a democracy and inequality is being actually practiced in these places. Is you couldy target one store and that store could integrate. That doesnt mean the store next door is going to integrate. Often times, businesses would say woolworths integrated, i dont want to be next. So i will go ahead and quietly integrate. But, its a movement that is fickle because there is no true uniformity or umbrella organization. Theirrths was a chain and philosophy was from their corporate headquarters, that we follow the local customs in which our stores occupy. The racial politics and practices of a woolworths in greensboro could be drastically different than one enrichment, for example. Host jacquelines next out of new orleans. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you and professor parker this morning. Host doing well. What is your question and comment . Caller i think its more like two statements that i have. Im going to try to be as fast as i can. One, i want to mention that my onher in the 60s had a job canal street. Was gh homes. It was like a dillards or macys. Mother got a job there and worked there for a few days and when she went to work that monday, the person who hired her said i thought i saw you and she said yes, that was me. The man you were walking with my motherk man and was not a white lady but was very bright skin. But they thought she was white and they fired her immediately for that. When you talk about woolworths and employing lack people, i understand that. When people did boycott like rosa parks and woolworth, when they stop spending their money, that is what made those people change their minds. They did not change their hearts. The dollar was not coming in and its sad you have to hurt a person in their pocket before they have a change of reaction. So i want people to think about that. We should not have to boycott and not spend our money for you to change her policy. So i want to say thank you. Im 55 years old and ive learned more about black history. The schools are not teaching it and i hope and pray that this will get through the United States government. We need to have black history in every school in the United States of america. It should be mandatory. Thank you for your time and god bless you. I appreciate cspan for allowing us to say what we need to say. Thank you guys. Host professor parker . Guest you are right. The story about being fired after learning that one is in fact black is quite common. This started as early as when Department Stores were in business. In my family, there was a story come a great and who is very, very fair and had gotten a job in downtown baltimore. When hers well known daughter might see her on the street, her daughter could not speak to her because of her employer found out she was a black woman, she would be fired. That is quite common and so disappointed. Regard to businesses and governments making change, and usually that change come from comes from because their pockets are hurt, thats the truth of the matter. Very few times are you seeing businesses change because of humanitarian efforts. Even as early as the 1940s and 50s, the quakers, the American Service committee, a Quaker Organization was going around throughout the country in large cities doing surveys with customers as they were walking out the store and they would do the surveys with white customers and asked would you be bothered if a black person was your yourperson while you made purchase . Overwhelmingly, these white customers would say i would not be bothered. Im really only in there for the good that i need. I would tolerate it. It would be fine. I would not find a new store to shop in. And still, managers, retailers, Business Owners were so fearful of alienating their desired clientele, the white, middle upper class is that they still refused to do so. With about 15 minutes left professor parker, author of Department Stores and the black Freedom Movement, working in the department of afroamerican studies at the university of massachusetts amherst. Considering your post, im wondering about your thoughts on schools not teaching black history . I agree with you. Mind islem is to my teaching history in middle school and high school is a political project. But we we are teaching students to be citizens in a way in which Larger Forces want us to understand citizenship. Result, what africanamerican students learn as they are secondclass citizens. Its not until they get to colleges and universities and this is so important why we need ethnic studies departments and African American studies apartments and women and gender studies departments i hear overwhelmingly when i teach my class on the history of the Civil Rights Movement or the history of black women that students are craving this information. Made not onlyents by black students, but white students, my latino and asian students, they are craving to know this history and they are able to see how important this history is for this moment. Im teaching an online civil rights course right now and we were having a discussion and the students are making between what happened and the sit in movement or in birmingham in 1963 and making these parallels between whats going on right now. In all honesty, a lot of the students were in all. They were impressed. But they were also encouraged and motivated to take part and do something to change the racial politics of our country. There,f that craving is why cant schools in this country bring what you are talking about down to at least a High School Level . Question. T is a good i dont work with High Schoolers, so i dont know. I suspect theres probably a variety of reasons. Funding,ably issues of issues of feeling like you are teaching to a test system. And im sure there is a blatant desire just to not teach it. Be, i do think if students have a stronger understanding about where everyone in this country has come from, to understand the diverse backgrounds of this country, to understand the influence of slavery and the legacy of slavery in this country, to understand the history of black protests in this country and the influence of black protests on other movements such as the lgbtqi a movement, though womens movement, that native americans had their own Freedom Movement and continue to have one. This is really important for understanding who we are as citizens. Host brooklyn, new york, this is ellen on the line for student participants. Caller good morning. Parkerest, professor mentioned she was active in baltimore and that brought back a memory to me. Group ofy active in a white students combined with a group of students from morgan the civicwe were in Interest Group and did some under very baltimore hostile conditions. I wanted to add that to the mix here. I believe it was Clarence Mitchell i dont know if that name is familiar to you. I think he went on and became a politician. Two things remain with me. When i was on these picket lines, a white man came up to me and i was im white and he said i would rather see my daughter dead then on a picket line. I think up to that point, i hadnt realized the emotional dimension of what we were attempting. The second thing was when we were arrested, we were put into a police van and taken for a very wild and bumpy ride through baltimore. Case camereddie gray thatt really rang a bell they had done the same thing. They had sped up and knocked him around. The same thing happen to us, and this was in 1960. I just wanted to share that. Host thank you for the call and thanks for the memories. Guest thank you for that comment. What you are pointing out is the interracial nature of these protests. Was a youthit movement and intergenerational, it is the generation of emmett till, but its his mothers generation. But the sit had white supporters and many of whom were white College Students. These were white members of religious communities. Had white, he students coming down from the north, increasingly after 1960 to help out with photo registration, to help out with , with theegation education of africanamerican southerners, it is quite important and i love the story, so im going to be really brief. When the four men set down at the lunch counter on that day and they are getting these looks from onlookers, white people sitting at the counter and they are fearful they might be physically harmed or killed. An elderly white woman came up and put her arm around his shoulder and said she was so proud of him and she had wished Something Like this had been done 10 years prior. Amount of white support comes in a variety of ways. White College Students who come in the case of greensboro, they are coming from the Womens College at unc and in the case of jackson, the sit in in 1963, reverend ed king, a a whiteaplain or College Student who participated and sat alongside and moody at the jackson sit in. White support was coming from a variety of places. The montgomery bus boycott, you had white female employers driving their domestics to work because theyre black domestics were not taking the bus out of protest. Nature oferracial this movement in the 1960s is very important. I think again, its important to themovement right now, diversity of the protesters out there fighting. Host as we get closer to 10 a. M. Eastern in the end of our program, i want to ask you what happened to that woolworths and lunch counter . What exists in greensboro today there . Woolworths has closed down throughout the country but it is now a museum. It is fabulous. , there areultimedia actors of some sort who detail what happened at the lunch so it has been, some time but it is worth going and seeing and i will say a couple of lunch counter schools lunch counter stools are in the africanian, American Museum in washington dc host . Just down the street from our studio here in washington dc. A call from participants out of kansas city. City, kansas. Females there were four and two males who participated in a sit and not at woolworths but at a restaurant however, the naacp sentwhen the out a call to picket in front of we are in free touched off the Civil Rights Movement in kansas city, kansas. I might add in 1952, im 87 years old. I was on my way to korea. I had been sent to korea, i was on my way and in kansas city, kansas, which was as segregated as earning him alabama or greensboro, North Carolina, i went to a store called ss kresge , a store similar to woolworths. They had a counter but africanamericans had to sit in the back. I sat in in 1952. Die ined if i have to korea, i could die in kansas city, kansas. They did serve me but will worth , the kansas city Kansas Branch refused to picket in front of will worth which touched off the Civil Rights Movement. Kansas city, kansas became the laughing stock of america. When some of the people who sat on the sidelines got involved. We started working on the Department Stores because they would not hire blacks and have all of the documents and today, bothbut even the black and White Communities do not like to be reminded because there was only a handful of us that only got involved here in kansas city, kansas. Was named francis haywood who lived in california and is still very, very active in the Civil Rights Movement. Parker . Acy gott i want to make sure i this correctly because my earpiece is going out. The localerstand is naacp was reluctant to participate in a protest movement . Host that sounded like what he was talking about. Guest that is not surprising. I believe he was talking about early 1950s, is that correct . Host yes. The naacp agenda in the 1950s was to take a more geisha and approach, hence why theres the brown versus board of education. They were reluctant to do anything that would involve direct confrontation. Ory jump on the bandwagon become more comfortable with that by the time we get to the student sit in movement because they see how effective it is. Articulated even the effectiveness of doing students and direct confrontation as long as it was nonviolent. But at that point in time, in the midst of the cold war, the felt that they didnt want to take any steps where they would be labeled a communist. The real agenda at that point in time was to approach civil rights through the courts. Host about a minute and a half left in the program. I want to give it to you to answer the question on the legacy of those citizens of 1960. We think about 1960 but the sit ins continued and were employed in a number of different ways. Mid 60sme you get to and late 60s in maryland, places in the upper north, we see citizens used in conjunction with economic boycott to racially integrate workplaces to ensure africanamericans can be hired in skilled positions. Strongly that the sit in Movement Really helped facilitate the creation and implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title two which outlaws discrimination in public accommodations. Legale these major moments, the brown versus the board of education being one of them, public accommodations are one of the most integrated places in america today. Schools and housing remain quite segregated. A lot can be said about the success and longevity of that public when it comes to accommodations and the efforts of those sit ins. Host tracy parker, we appreciate your time this morning. Guest thank you. What do you think we can do about that . With police reform, protests, and the coronavirus continuing to affect the country, watch our live, unfiltered coverage of the governments response with rethinks from the white house, congress, governors and mayors across the country updating the situation and, from the campaign 2020 trail, joined the conversation every day on our live callin program, washington journal. If you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on demand on cspan. Org or listen on the cspan radio app. Next, lawmakers look into legal justifications to sue china for its role in the coronavirus pandemic. The hear from witnesses on foreign sovereign immuns