Sit-Ins

Sit-Ins Angelina Tran

Spot where the first sit-in took place and helped changed history.

During the 1950's, discrimination was still going on. Americans were not happy with living or working equally as blacks. In the 1950's Jim Crow laws "separate but equal" were passed by a majority of states. These laws authorized legal punishments for associating with the opposite race. This caused The Civil Rights Movement to begin and it started gaining popularity. The sit-in movement started in the 1960's and this was one of the non violent strategies that people used in order to gain supporters for equality.

This first happened in North Carolina on February 1, 1960, when African American students refused to leave the lunch counter until they were served food.

They were trying to protest in a non violent way. By doing their sit ins, it showed that black people should be allowed to be served in the same area as whites were. Not only was it meant for just having equality in the restaurant but equality everywhere in the country. Fighting for their rights meant change and that was what they wanted. The sit-in tactic helped integrate other facilities. By August 1961, an estimated 70,000 people had participated in sit-ins across the country.

One of the most important results of these actions was that students from across the country became active participants in the civil right movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. helped African Americans gain supporters with these strategies. Among these supporters weren't just black but also whites who were fighting for equality.

Also, The SNCC stands for Student Nonviolent Coordinating and Committee who would organize these sit ins. They were founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, in April 1960. Over the next few years SNCC served as one of the leading forces in the civil rights movement organizing Freedom Rides through the South in 1961. These people impacted sit-Ins because they strongly believed in non-violent actions and that's what sit ins were really about.

They faced violent attacks by white onlookers. This included threats, intimidation, and physical attacks. Activists were arrested and charged with trespassing.

They knew that if they responded back with violence it would make it more difficult for them to gain equality so they trained for their sit ins so that they would all have an idea of what to expect. They were trained to take the punishment.

The four students in North Carolina sparked a wave of additional sit-ins throughout the South and set the stage for the creation of a new organization that quickly gained momentum within the civil rights movement. Slowly, restaurants in the South began getting rid of their policies with segregation. It impacts today because now restaurants all over the country are non-segregated and we all can sit and be served wherever we want. And not only are restaurants desegregated but schools, buses, and more.

Gender Inequality can connect to my event. Gender Inequality has always been an issue everywhere. It is the idea that women and men are not equal. Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment of individuals partly due to their gender. Just like sit-ins there have been lots of non-violent protests and people standing up to gender inequality. For example Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize winner. Sit ins during the civil rights movement were fighting for black rights. While gender equality movements focus on fighting for women's rights. The fight for racial equality is intertwined in the fight for women’s equality in our country’s history. Ultimately, what history teaches is that there is no racial equality and no gender equality without equality for all.

Women are fighting for gender equality in order to gain better jobs, pay, and education which has been an obstacle.

U. (2017). The Sit-In Movement. Retrieved May 11, 2017, from http://www.ushistory.org/us/54d.asp

Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation. (2016, November 28). Retrieved May 12, 2017, from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/eras/civil-war-reconstruction/jim-crow-laws-andracial-segregation/

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with images by AFGE - "ICRCM Awards Gala and Program Honoring Augusta Y. Thomas" • Ron Cogswell - ""Woolworth's Sit-In" No.1 -- A Plaque in Downtown Jackson (MS) May 2013" • Seattle Municipal Archives - "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day march, 2003" • Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com - "Women's Equality Day, after Bertha Margaret Boye" • aeneastudio - "Malcom" • Tony Fischer Photography - ""We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest"" • niekverlaan - "protest protest action group of people" • david_shankbone - "Whoopi Goldberg in New York City Protesting California Proposition 8" • iamsdawson - "Equality For All" • Office for National Statistics - "Inequality in the provision of unpaid care" • Southbank Centre London - "Malala Yousafzai" • DFID - UK Department for International Development - "Fahma Mohamed, Justine Greening and Hamda Mohamed"

Sit-Ins Angelina Tran

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