Atlanta Sit-Ins 1960-61

To fully understand the Atlanta sit-in movement it is necessary to take a brief look at the history of this particular form of nonviolent protest. The roots of nonviolent campaigns utilized during the Civil Rights Movement lie in the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi which were revisited and popularized by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in his book Stride Toward Freedom. Nonviolence was seen as a means to persuade an opponent by heightening their sense of justice and was deeply established in the concepts of reason, discipline and love. For King, and his followers, nonviolence was to become a “commitment to a way of life.” The essential elements of nonviolence are best expressed through the organizations that adopted them as fundamental ideology; organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee explicitly stated their dedication to nonviolent direct action as the method through which they sought “a social order of justice permeated by love.” The students that initiated the sit-in movement in Atlanta were equally committed to the tactics of nonviolence and reflected the notion that nonviolence created an atmosphere in which compromise and equality could be accomplished.[2]

Prior to 1960, several sit-in attempts were made, but these events went largely ignored due to location and media apathy. The first sit-in demonstrations held in the United States occurred in Chicago in 1942 and were orchestrated by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The attempt was successful and the sit-ins slowly spread into other major Northern and Midwest cities, but CORE, limited to its intellectual white membership, found it difficult to spread the sit-ins into the staunchly segregated South. Another failed attempt at mass sit-ins took place during the summer and early fall of 1958 in Oklahoma and Kansas. Prompted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth Council (NAACP), the sit-ins first began in Oklahoma City and by September had spread into other major cities in Oklahoma and Kansas. Again, these sit-ins were contained to this limited area because of three major reasons: 1.) African American students in the Deep South did not perceive themselves as having any connection to the students from the bordering southern states of Oklahoma and Kansas. 2.) There was a lack of widespread media coverage to aid the spread of the movement. 3.) The adult organization such as the NAACP did not have the student support in the Deep South that was necessary to spread the sit-ins.[3]

The actions taken by the four North Carolina A & T students lit the fuse that spread the mass sit-in movement across the Deep South and the students of the Center were prepared to take on the challenge of desegregating downtown Atlanta. In the days following the events in Greensboro, students among the Center, specifically Morehouse College, began meeting to discuss what role they should take in this latest movement. By February 20, the newly formed Committee on Appeal for Human Rights met with the Council of Presidents from the six schools and made the presidents aware of their intentions to get involved. The committee promised to keep the presidents well informed by meeting with them regularly; at one of these meetings, the presidents suggested the students compose a formal manifesto stating their grievances to all of Atlanta before they began the sit-in demonstrations. Honoring this suggestion, the students of the Center drafted “An Appeal for Human Rights,” which was published in three of Atlanta’s leading newspapers, marking a unique aspect of the Atlanta sit-in movement. Following the publication of “An Appeal for Human Rights,” the Center students held their first formal demonstrations on March 15 where seventy-seven individuals were arrested. Sit-ins and picketing continued through the rest of the regular school year and the summer brought a dedication to planning the continuance of the movement in the fall. When the school year resumed in the fall, Atlanta witnessed another wave of sit-ins.[4]

In the fall of 1960, Atlanta’s sit-in movement became highly eventful and volatile. On October 19, fifty-seven individuals who were arrested chose to remain in jail rather than accept bail payments. Among those arrested was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who had recently moved back to Atlanta. As the students remained in jail, awareness and tensions rose until Mayor B. Hartsfield requested a thirty day truce while he acted as mediator between the students and businessmen. Both sides agreed to the truce, but frustrations regarding the negotiations caused the students to recommence their activities on November 25. Entering into 1961, the students of the Center requested that the prominent leaders in Atlanta’s African American community negotiate an agreement with the businessmen of Atlanta. On March 7, 1961, an agreement was reached which stated downtown integration would occur following the school desegregation in the fall. The agreement was mostly what the downtown businessmen had proposed as early as the summer of 1960. Finally, the eighteen month struggle for downtown integration ended on September 27, 1961.[5]

Several factors created the environment in which students found it necessary and legitimate to hold mass protests. The first of these motivating factors was the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1957. Prior to the actions taken by Rosa Parks, the civil rights movement was a professional endeavor, but, by one woman taking a stand, the civil rights movement was finally opened to the ordinary person. In a sense, the events in Montgomery “democratized the civil rights movement.” The more educated and well-off students of the Center observed the illiterate and down-trodden make great self-sacrifices for the first time in their young lives. The second series of events that influenced the Center students was the struggle to integrate public schools throughout the South. The battle to desegregate the school system began in the mid-1950s into the early 1960s; all the while, the figures that embodied the African American determination were the young students attending grammar and high schools. The students of the Center saw the burden their younger brothers and sisters were enduring and felt it was their duty to take part.[6]

The contact some students had with foreign cultures either through military service or scholarship opportunities further encouraged them to initiate change where they lived. As students traveled overseas they encountered societies that were free of the racial segregation the students were accustomed to back in the United States. For most young African American males, this exposure came through military service in Europe or Korea; young women got their opportunity to experience such freedoms through scholarship programs such as the Merrill Scholarship Program offered through Spelman College. Once these students returned to their homes and schools in the segregated South they experienced the stark contrast between the more racially open societies they just left and the segregated, Jim Crow society they returned to. A great number of these students developed a firm commitment to desegregating Atlanta and became leaders in the Atlanta sit-in movement.[7]

Finally, the most influential motivational factor for these young college students was their personal experiences with segregation. Daily they encountered the double standard which required them to relegate themselves to second-class citizenship. Although these students lived in a nation which publicly proclaimed equality and liberty, they knew nothing but discrimination solely based on the pigment of their skin. While they were allowed to spend their money downtown, they were restricted from trying on the clothing they bought. Simple pleasures white citizens enjoyed in Atlanta such as a lunch break in the stores they shopped in, access to water fountains and convenient public restrooms were constant reminders to the African American citizens of the city that they were second rate. They could not take a simple trip to downtown without accommodating their schedules to a race that felt superior to them. In light of these disadvantages, the students that entered the Center during the late fifties and early sixties searched themselves for reason why they should tolerate segregation and increasingly became cautious of accepting the status quo. They were, thus, prepared to disturb the social environment which inhibited their civil rights. When they finally got a chance to participate in the Atlanta sit-ins these young African American protestors gained a chance to feel their worth by actively participating in something that would change the inequities they endured.[8]

The academic environment these students entered only further encouraged their action during the Atlanta sit-in movement. The professors that taught at the Atlanta institutions did not generally teach complacency. The authority figures at these schools were not pacifist; a perfect example is Benjamin E. Mays, the president of Morehouse College, who himself participated in his own private battles against discrimination. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted of his time at Morehouse that the faculty instilled in their students a sense of personal worth and obligation to improve their world by refusing to accept the principles of racism. The atmosphere these students lived in was one that ironically empowered them in the midst of a discriminatory society that stripped them of dignity. The six institutions of the Center were creating a generation of leaders that even they could not hold back once the movement started. When urged by the Council of Presidents to hold off a march on downtown Atlanta, Lonnie King, a prominent leader of the student movement, simply told the Council:

You all have been teaching us that we have to become leaders. So, now that we have an opportunity to be leaders today, you don’t tell us to be leaders tomorrow. We have a chance to be leaders today and I think we ought to do it, and we are ready.

Clearly, the education the students received at the six institutions had aptly prepared them to step up during such a vital point in Atlanta’s history.[9]

“An Appeal for Human Rights” reflects the commitment the Center students had to both the ideology of nonviolence and to the completion of their task. At the time the “Appeal” was published it was the only document drafted of its kind. Never before had a student group taken the initiative to formally write and publish such an extensive list of grievances regarding segregation. The “Appeal” addressed seven areas of discriminatory conditions in the city of Atlanta; education, jobs, housing, voting, hospitals, public facilities and law enforcement. It is important to note the reasons the Center students listed for their actions. In light of the drawn out process of public school integration, the students point out the “snail-like speed” at which discrimination was being handled and explicitly state their unwillingness to calmly wait for their constitutionally afforded rights “to be meted out to [them] one at a time.” The end of the document states the students’ commitment to using only legal and nonviolent measures to secure their civil rights. The “Appeal” was generally met with favorable, but mixed reaction. The document which was eloquently and thoroughly written caused some to question the authenticity of it. Others, such as Mayor Hartsfield, found it a perfect summary of the sentiments of most youth in the city and regarded the “Appeal” to hold great importance.[10]

The reactions the students received from the white and black communities of Atlanta were both typical to the times and unique to the South’s most progressive city. While Atlanta avoided any violent eruptions like those that occurred in other segregated cities, it did not avoid the mass opposition between the protestors and the general public. The most typical response the protestors faced was a disagreement over the tactics they employed. Many in the white community felt the young students should simply end their protests after the publication of the “Appeal;” the voicing of their grievances was enough at that juncture. The adult black community disagreed with the continuation of sit-ins and boycotts because they felt it only hindered the community’s chances of negotiating with the white businessmen. Both the white population and a section of the adult African American population agreed that the issue of segregation was one that required the “delicacy and wisdom of the city’s elders rather than the impetuousness of youth.” In the face of such opposition the students still refused to merely back off.[11]

The conflict that arose between the adults and youths within Atlanta’s African American population is one that provides an insight into the divide between the generations regarding civil rights. The majority of the elder black Atlantans was committed to resolving civil rights issues through the court room. The older generation of African Americans in the South seemed content with the pace at which the social injustices they confronted were being addressed; the integration of public schools was seemingly inevitable and, one by one, the numerous obstacles in front of them would be tackled in due time. After witnessing the sluggish pace at which public schools were being integrated, the restless youth that comprised the movement were prepared to take risks to jumpstart a change in the city. Primarily, tactics were the main point of dissension between the two groups. The prominent adult leaders viewed economic tactics such as boycotts and demonstrations as an interference in their established relations with the white business community. Protest leaders felt the traditional spokesmen for the black community had too much invested in the current situation of segregation. In their view, the elder leaders had benefited during segregation since they had attained their status “because they [had] gained white recognition and favor.” Primarily, student protest leaders felt that their predecessors had “given up efforts to penetrate the dominant white society.” By holding open sit-ins and demonstrations the young protestors were proclaiming they would no longer “adjust their aspirations and their behavior” to the repressive system of segregation.[12]

Ironically, the dissention within the African American community aided the negotiations between them and the white businessmen of Atlanta. The two groups unintentionally complimented one another and neither could complete the task of downtown integration on its own. The students and protest leaders who organized the sit-in demonstrations created the situation that demanded attention and resolution. The protest group could not, however, settle the dispute with white businessmen because they lacked the rapport to the dominant white community. When it came to arbitration, the conservative leaders proved to possess the reputation and connections it took to negotiate with the elite white businessmen. While they often were suspicious of one another and disagreed on certain issues surrounding segregation, the combination of the protest and conservative groups fueled a system that advanced the negotiations to integrate downtown Atlanta.[13]

The Atlanta sit-in demonstrations provide a proper case study of nonviolent protests and an appropriate representation of the intricate motivations, actions and negotiations that went into Southern integration efforts during the early 1960s. Atlanta appeared to be a paradoxical city for those students who lived and studied at the Center; a city that provided so many African American youths a place for educational enlightenment still stubbornly clung to the social dogmas that stripped those same students of their social dignity. The Atlanta sit-in movement became a way for frustrated youth to express their dissatisfaction with racial inequality. As my research has shown, the participants’ awareness of the injustices they suffered was heightened by several factors including observations of other integration efforts, travel overseas and, most importantly, their personal experience as African Americans in a Southern city. The effect their education had on their views and tactics cannot be overlooked. The institutions of higher education in Atlanta instilled a sense of dignity and pride in the black youth of the city which set them up to become the dynamic leaders who would change the public face of downtown Atlanta. The participants in the Atlanta sit-in movement displayed an ever-present willingness to remain disciplined and dedicated to the task at hand. This determination was necessary when it came to negotiations with the white business community which were often stalled due to the inability of the two groups to reach an agreement. It was at this juncture the younger protest group had to rely on the abilities of their elders to negotiate a final agreement. The Atlanta sit-in movement is ultimately characterized by the protesting youth’s dedication to the principles of nonviolence and determination to achieve equality in the South’s most progressive city.

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This is a great site with some great resources. It gives an overview of the events that sparked the sit-in movement and features multimedia sources such as photographs, newspaper articles and audio interviews with those most closely involved, including three of the four student activists who started it all.

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement

This site gives a good social and historical context that predated the movement. It is a good resource to find a broad view of the Civil Rights Movement. There is an interactive map that allows you to click on an area and access information on events that occurred there. Make sure to click on the Atlanta portion to view information about the Atlanta University Center and the people/strategies involved.

National Civil Rights Museum: Virtual Tour

This site allows you to view pictures of some of their exhibits and provides skeletal information about the Civil Rights Movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws

The site defines Jim Crow and provides a list of laws from different states outlining segregation in all areas of life. These are the conditions students of Atlanta lived in during Jim Crow Era.

Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement by Sanderson Beck

This essay by Beck concentrates on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the principle of nonviolence and civil disobedience. In several places it gives the principles, intentions and practices on nonviolence.