They were caused when four African American college students when into a cafe and were refused service. They then decides to stay sitting there until they got served. The other guests, who were white, were not happy with what the college students were doing.

Their goal in this was to show that they deserve equal treatment. They were also trying to demonstrate protesting was possible in a non-violent way. Eventually the news about the sit-ins spread and people were joining in all across the country. One huge this is the Martin Luther King Jr. publically spoke out to show is support of the sit-ins. This greatly helped to spread the word about what was going on and what needed to be done.

They had a lot of obstacles when doing this. This was a very time consuming process. They were also extremely disrespected by whites in the cafe at the time of the sit-in. They had food and other things thrown at them while they were sitting. Still they managed to remain silent and let it not affect them. They had the end goal in mind and were determined to stay focused.

In December of 2015, a huge group of people crowded the Mall of America and refused to leave in order to protest against how they were being treated (Black Lives Matter). This is similar to the sit ins because a group of people refused to leave an area in order to get fair treatment and to make a stand against it.

Sources:

http://www.ushistory.org/us/54d.asp

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/23/black-lives-matter-organizers-protest-mall-of-america