On February 1, 1960, four college students in Greensboro staged the first sit-in at a Woolhort lunch counter. The event received no attention. However, it inspired other sit ins to take place. Students in Nashville who had received more training were able to execute more successful sit-is that caught media attention. The Nashville sit-ins propelled the tactic to the main stage of American news. As this method of resistance proved successful, violent outbursts became increasingly common. The February 27 sit-in marked the first times that law enforcement stayed back and allowed white mobs to attack the African American students. Despite the activists’ discipline and calm demeanor, 80 of them were arrested. No white aggressors were charged. The
…show more content…
On May 4, 1961, seven African American and six white activists began the Freedom Rides. This series of bus trips through the south challenged the lack of enforcement for the Supreme Court’s ruling of United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960) which ruled segregated public buses are unconstitutional. Their goal was to travel to New Orleans to celebrate the anniversary of Brown V. Board of Education. However, this set a precedent for violence that plagued other freedom riders. The first violent incident occurred on May 12 in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where John Lewis, an African-American seminary student and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other freedom riders were met with progressively large mobs and a lack of protection from law enforcement as they ventured south (Arsenault, 2006). Members of the bus decided to split into two. On May 14, 1961, the original bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama. 200 angry white people surrounded the bus and one person threw a bomb inside it. The Riders barely escaped. Passengers in the second bus arrived in Birmingham, Alabama that same day and were severely beaten by another mob. News coverage made both national and international headlines and drew more negative attention to the south’s defiance of national …show more content…
Churches were one of the few places where blacks could congregate and organize in peace since the early days of emancipation. It is for this reason that they played such a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. It was inside the Holt Street Baptist Church that the idea for the Montgomery bus boycott was able to be implemented. Reverend Lawson trained sit-in activists in the basement of the Clark Memorial Methodist Church. The Brown Chapel AME Church in Montgomery served as an important meeting and training place for
On May 4, 1961, seven African American and six white activists began the Freedom Rides. This series of bus trips through the south challenged the lack of enforcement for the Supreme Court’s ruling of United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960) which ruled segregated public buses are unconstitutional. Their goal was to travel to New Orleans to celebrate the anniversary of Brown V. Board of Education. However, this set a precedent for violence that plagued other freedom riders. The first violent incident occurred on May 12 in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where John Lewis, an African-American seminary student and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other freedom riders were met with progressively large mobs and a lack of protection from law enforcement as they ventured south (Arsenault, 2006). Members of the bus decided to split into two. On May 14, 1961, the original bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama. 200 angry white people surrounded the bus and one person threw a bomb inside it. The Riders barely escaped. Passengers in the second bus arrived in Birmingham, Alabama that same day and were severely beaten by another mob. News coverage made both national and international headlines and drew more negative attention to the south’s defiance of national …show more content…
Churches were one of the few places where blacks could congregate and organize in peace since the early days of emancipation. It is for this reason that they played such a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. It was inside the Holt Street Baptist Church that the idea for the Montgomery bus boycott was able to be implemented. Reverend Lawson trained sit-in activists in the basement of the Clark Memorial Methodist Church. The Brown Chapel AME Church in Montgomery served as an important meeting and training place for