Editing Sit-in (section)

=== United States ===

==== Civil rights movement ====
{{Main|Civil rights movement|Sit-in movement}}
The [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]] (FOR) and the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE) conducted sit-ins as early as the 1940s. Ernest Calloway refers to [[Bernice Fisher]] as "Godmother of the restaurant 'sit-in' technique."<ref>"Of Time and Sound, Requiem For A Free, Compassionate Spirit", by Ernest Galloway, published in ''Missouri Teamster'', May 12, 1966, Page 7.</ref> In August 1939, African-American attorney [[Samuel Wilbert Tucker]] organized the [[Alexandria Library sit-in]] at the then [[Racial segregation in the United States|racially segregated]] library.<ref>{{cite web|title=America's First Sit-Down Strike: The 1939 Alexandria Library Sit-In|url=http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html|publisher=City of Alexandria|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528015924/http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson2_reading2.html|archive-date=May 28, 2010|access-date=August 24, 2016}}</ref> [[Congress of Industrial Organizations]] (CIO) labor delegates had a brief, spontaneous [[lunch counter]] sit-in during their 1947 [[Columbus, Ohio]] convention.<ref>(''NYT'' March 17, 1947: 16)</ref>

In one of the earliest use of sit-ins against racism, followers of [[Father Divine]] and the [[International Peace Mission Movement]] joined with the Cafeteria [[Labor unions in the United States|Workers Union]], Local 302, in September 1939 to protest racially unfair hiring practices at New York's Shack Sandwich Shops, Inc. According to ''[[The New York Times]]'' for September 23, 1939,<ref>{{cite news|title=Divine's Followers Give Aid to Strikers: With Evangelist's Sanction They 'Sit Down' in Restaurant|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 23, 1939|id={{ProQuest|103043251}}}}</ref> on Thursday between 75 and 100 followers showed up at the restaurant at Forty-first Street and [[Lexington Avenue]], where most of the [[Strike action|strike]] activity has been concentrated, and groups went into the place, purchased five-cent cups of coffee, and conducted what might be described as a kind of customers' nickel sit down strike. Other patrons were unable to find seats.<ref>{{cite news |title=Divine's Followers Give Aid to Strikers; With Evangelist's Sanction They 'Sit Down' in Restaurant |url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A17FA3B54107A93C1AB1782D85F4D8385F9 |work=The New York Times |location=US |date=September 23, 1939 |access-date=July 20, 2010 }}</ref>

In May 1942, [[James Farmer Jr.]], an organizer for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, led a group of 27 people to protest the racially discriminatory no-service policy of the Jack Spratt Diner on 47th Street in [[Chicago]]. Each seating area at the diner was taken by groups that included at least one black person. The peaceful patrons, several from the campus of the nearby [[University of Chicago]], then tried to order; all were refused. The police were called, but when they arrived they told the management that no laws were being broken, so no arrests were made. The diner closed for the night but thereafter, according to periodic checks made by CORE activists, it no longer enforced its discriminatory policy.<ref>{{cite news |title=Birth of the sit-in |newspaper=Chicago Tribune | date=February 24, 2014 | author=Grossman, Ron | page=17}}</ref> 
     
With the encouragement of [[Melvin B. Tolson]] and Farmer, students from [[Wiley College|Wiley]] and [[Bishop College|Bishop]] Colleges organized the first sit-in in Texas in the rotunda of the [[Old Harrison County Courthouse (Texas)|Harrison County Courthouse]] in [[Marshall, Texas|Marshall]]. This sit-in directly challenged the oldest [[White Citizens Parties|White Citizens Party]] in Texas and would culminate in the reversal of [[Jim Crow laws]] in the state and the [[desegregation]] of postgraduate studies in Texas by the ''[[Sweatt v. Painter]]'' (1950) verdict. Sit-ins are often recognized for illuminating the goals of the movement in a way that young people were also able to participate in.<ref>{{Citation |last=Schmidt |first=Christopher W. |title=The Sit-In Movement |date=2018-07-30 |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History |url=https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-445 |access-date=2024-07-29 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.445 |isbn=978-0-19-932917-5|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Sit-ins were an integral part of the nonviolent strategy of civil disobedience and mass protests that eventually led to passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] which ended legally sanctioned racial segregation in the United States and also passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] that struck down many racially motivated barriers used to deny voting rights to non-whites.

====1955 Baltimore, Maryland====
{{See also|Read's Drug Store}}
One of the earliest lunch counter sit-ins of the [[Civil Rights Movement]] was started by a group of [[Morgan State University|Morgan State College]] (now University) students and the Baltimore chapter of CORE. Their goal was to desegregate Read's drug stores. The peaceful [[wikt:impromptu#Adjective|impromptu]] sit-in lasted less than one half an hour and the students were not served. They left voluntarily and no one was arrested. After losing business from the sit-in and several local protests, two days later the ''[[Baltimore Afro-American]]'' newspaper ran a story featuring Arthur Nattans Sr., then President of Read's, who was quoted saying, "We will serve all customers throughout our entire stores, including the fountains, and this becomes effective immediately". As a result, 37 Baltimore-area lunch counters became desegregated.<ref>{{cite news|last=Pousson|first=Eli|title=Why the West Side Matters: Read's Drug Store and Baltimore's Civil Rights Heritage|url=http://www.baltimoreheritage.org/2011/01/why-the-west-side-matters-reads-drug-store-and-baltimores-civil-rights-heritage/|access-date=July 14, 2014|publisher=[[Baltimore Heritage|Baltimore Heritage Organization]]|date=January 7, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Gunts|first=Edward|title=Read's drugstore flap brings Baltimore civil rights history to life|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2011/02/08/reads-drugstore-flap-brings-baltimore-civil-rights-history-to-life/|access-date=July 14, 2014|newspaper=[[Baltimore Sun]]|date=February 8, 2011}}</ref> Despite also being led by students and successfully targeting segregation at a store lunch counter, the Read's Drug Store sit-in did not garner the same level of attention as the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/93|title=Read's Drug Store|first=Eli|last=Pousson|publisher=baltimoreheritage.org|accessdate=May 25, 2023}}</ref>

====1957 Durham, North Carolina====
{{Main|Royal Ice Cream sit-in}}
At another early sit-in, the "Royal Seven," a group of three women and four men from [[Durham, North Carolina|Durham]], [[North Carolina]], sat in at the Royal Ice Cream Parlor on June 23, 1957, to protest practices of segregation.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim//timhis57.htm#1957royal Royal Ice Cream Sit-in — Durham, NC] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>  The activists were arrested and charged with trespassing.  Their efforts are now recognized via historical markers in Durham. They went to court three times; each case ended in their being found guilty.

====1958 Wichita and Oklahoma City====
{{Main|Dockum Drug Store sit-in|Clara Luper}}
This sit-in for the purpose of integrating segregated establishments began on July 19, 1958, in [[Wichita, Kansas]], at Dockum Drugs, a store in the old Rexall chain.<ref name=NPR>Eckels, Carla. [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6355095 "Kansas Sit-In Gets Its Due at Last"], [[National Public Radio]], October 21, 2006. Accessed September 15, 2010.</ref> In early August, the drugstore became integrated, then remainder of Dockum stores in all of Kansas. A few weeks later on August 19, 1958, in [[Oklahoma City]], a nationally recognized sit-in at the Katz Drug Store lunch counter occurred. The Oklahoma City Sit-in Movement was led by [[NAACP Youth Council]] leader [[Clara Luper]], a local high school teacher, and young local students, including Luper's eight-year-old daughter, who suggested the sit-in be held. The group quickly desegregated the Katz Drug Store lunch counters. It took several more years, but she and the students, using the tactic, integrated all of Oklahoma City's eating establishments. Today, in downtown [[Wichita, Kansas]], a statue depicting a waitress at a counter serving people honors this pioneering sit-in.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?306264-1/dockum-drug-store-sitin|title=Dockum Drug Store Sit-In, May 10 2012 - Video - C-SPAN.org|website=C-SPAN.org}}</ref> Despite the notable attention that has historically been given to the 1960 Greensboro sit-in, the 1958 Katz Drug Store sit-in in fact employed the same strategy that would be used in Greensboro one-and-a-half years later.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.oklahoman.com/story/lifestyle/2018/07/29/african-american-history-in-oklahoma-contains-sit-ins-soldiers-entrepreneurs-and-more/60510897007/|title=African-American history in Oklahoma contains sit-ins, soldiers, entrepreneurs and more|first=Bob L.|last=Backburn|publisher=The Oklahoman|date=July 29, 2018|accessdate=April 27, 2023}}</ref>

====1960 Greensboro and Nashville====
{{Main|Greensboro sit-ins|Nashville sit-ins}}
Following the [[Oklahoma City]] sit-ins, the tactic of non-violent student sit-ins spread. The [[Greensboro sit-ins]] at a [[F.W. Woolworth Company|Woolworth's]] in [[Greensboro, North Carolina]], on February 1, 1960, launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960greensboro First Southern Sit-in, Greensboro NC] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> Within weeks, sit-in campaigns had begun in nearly a dozen cities, primarily targeting Woolworth's and [[S. H. Kress & Co.|S. H. Kress]] and other stores of other national chains.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960sitins Sit-ins Spread Across the South] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref>

The largest and best-organized of these campaigns were the [[Nashville sit-ins]], whose groundwork was already underway before the Greensboro events. They involved hundreds of participants, and led to the successful desegregation of Nashville [[lunch counter]]s.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis60.htm#1960nsm Nashville Student Movement] ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> Most of the participants in the Nashville sit-ins were college students, and many, such as [[Diane Nash]], [[James Bevel]], [[Bernard Lafayette]], and [[C. T. Vivian]], went on to lead, strategize, and direct almost every aspect of the 1960s civil rights movement. The students of the [[historically black colleges and universities]] in the city played a critical role in implementing the Nashville sit-ins.{{Citation needed|date=April 2014}}

'''1963 Flagstaff Arizona'''

The NAACP recruited 10 high school and middle school students from Flagstaff Junior High School and Flagstaff High School to protest the refusal of the El Charro Cafe to serve a bus load of Negro tourists from New Jersey. Shirley Sims, a 14-year-old member of the NAACP Youth Corp at Flagstaff Junior High School, accepted the invitation to participate in a [[nonviolent]] sit-in demonstration. Each of the youth members were given $5 with the instructions to go inside and sit down. If they were able to order a meal they would pay for it, if not they would sit there. Reportedly, none of the members were served. Joseph Watkins, an official of the Arizona Branch of the NAACP, reported to the Flagstaff City Council that none of the youths had been served and that there had been no violence. Watkins also stated that unless the restaurant had a change in policy, more sit ins would be staged, "but whatever methods we employ or encourage will be peaceful." Sims stated in an ''Arizona Daily Sun'' article<ref>[https://azdailysun.com/news/local/integrating-flagstaff-shirley-sims-at-the-center-of-desegregation/article_0d733118-404f-11e1-9b3a-0019bb2963f4.html ''Dailey Sun'' article]</ref> in 2017 that, "it wasn't scary because a lot of the people who frequented that restaurant were our teachers, and they encouraged us."

====1961 Rock Hill, South Carolina====
The [[Friendship Nine]] was a group of African American men who went to jail after staging a sit-in at a segregated [[McCrory's]] [[lunch counter]] in [[Rock Hill, South Carolina]] in 1961. The group gained nationwide attention because they followed the Nashville student's strategy of not bailing themselves out of jail and called it "Jail, No Bail",<ref>{{cite news |title=Associated Press'Sing-In' Negroes Eat Hearty; Say 'Jail—No Bail' |agency=Associated Press |newspaper=The Spartanburg Herald |date=February 21, 1961 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=g3ssAAAAIBAJ&pg=7405,2802776&dq=rock+hill+sit-in&hl=en |access-date=December 1, 2010 |quote=Eight Negro Demonstrators is a disciplinary cell at the York County Prison Camp accepted and ate second helpings Monday of the full meal given every third day to prisoners on bread and water. }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Scoggins|first=Michael, Rawlinson David|title=Rock Hill, Jail No Bail & The Friendship Nine|url=http://www.friendshipcollege.org/jailnobail.html|publisher=Friendship Jr. College 445 Allen St. Rock Hill, South Carolina|access-date=October 21, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111117063355/http://www.friendshipcollege.org/jailnobail.html|archive-date=November 17, 2011}}"(..) The first man tried was Charles Taylor, the Friendship student from New Jersey. Taylor was tried, found guilty, convicted, and sentenced to $100 fine or 30 days hard labor on the York County Prison Farm. The protesters' attorney, an African-American lawyer from Sumter named Ernest A. Finney, then asked the judge to let Taylor's trial be used as a basis for the other nine and the judge agreed. The other nine were then tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the same punishment. Taylor was concerned about possibly losing his athletic scholarship at Friendship, so with the assistance of the NAACP, he paid his bail and was released. The NAACP offered to pay the bail for the remaining nine protesters but they refused, and on February 2, they began serving out their 30-day sentences on the county prison farm. After beginning their sentence on the county farm, the nine protesters were quickly given the appellation "Friendship Nine" by the press, and the case became famous nationwide. Motorcades of other protesters and supporters converged on the prison, and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) came to Rock Hill and demonstrated; they too were arrested, jailed and refused bail. Over the course of the next year further demonstrations and arrests followed in Rock Hill, as well as in other cities throughout the United States. Protesters across the country adopted the "jail no bail" policy implemented by the Nashville students and the Friendship Nine, and served out their jail sentences rather than helping to subsidize a system that supported segregation and inequality. These acts of heroism by the Friendship Nine and others helped to spur even larger protests like the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963 and the famous march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. (..)"</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Jail, No Bail' Idea Stymied Cities' Profiting From Civil Rights Protesters|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june11/jail_03-07.html|work=South Carolina ETV's "Carolina Stories."|publisher=The PBS NewsHour|access-date=October 21, 2011}}"The 'Jail, No Bail' strategy became a new tactic in the fight for civil rights. Documentary produced by South Carolina ETV documenting the key moment in civil rights history." (Video and Audio)</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Jail, No Bail|url=http://www.scetv.org/index.php/carolina_stories/show/jail_no_bail/|work=Carolina Stories|publisher=South Carolina ETV|access-date=October 21, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111219005915/http://www.scetv.org/index.php/carolina_stories/show/jail_no_bail/|archive-date=December 19, 2011}}"(..) In previous sit-ins across the South, protestors were arrested, processed by the police, fined and then released, creating a dubious revenue stream from which many municipalities easily profited. But when the Friendship students went before the judge, they chose to serve their time behind bars.  For the first time, not only did the city not collect its $100 per person, it actually had to pay to house and feed the men. (..) Word of their action spread like wildfire, receiving national media attention, including the New York Times.  The "Jail, No Bail" strategy became the new tactic that helped galvanize the civil rights protest movement. (..)"</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Hartford|first=Bruce|title=Rock Hill SC, "Jail-No-Bail" Sit-ins (Feb-Mar)|url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm|work=The Civil Rights Movement Archive|publisher=Westwind Writers Inc.|access-date=October 21, 2011}}"(..) At the October 1960 SNCC strategy conference in Atlanta, some activists argue for "Jail-No-Bail" tactics. They take a Gandhian position that paying bail or fines indicates acceptance of an immoral system and validates their own arrests. And by serving their sentences, they dramatize the injustice, intensify the struggle, and gain additional media coverage. There is also a practical component to "Jail-No-Bail." The Movement has little money and most southern Blacks are poor. It is hard to scrape up bail money, and sit-in struggles are faltering — not from lack of volunteers to risk arrest — but from lack of money to bail them out. Moreover, paying fines provides the cops with financial resources that are then used to continue suppressing the freedom struggle. By refusing bail, they render meaningless the no-money-for-bail barrier and by serving time they put financial pressure on local authorities who have to pay the costs of incarcerating them.  (..)"</ref> which lessened the huge financial burden [[civil rights]] groups were facing as the sit-in movement spread across the South. They became known as the Friendship Nine because eight of the nine men were students at Rock Hill's [[Friendship Junior College]]. They are sometimes referred to as the Rock Hill Nine.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Friendship Nine / January 31, 1961 |newspaper=Herald Online |date=February 22, 2004 |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/heraldonline/access/550272941.html?dids=550272941:550272941&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+22%2C+2004&author=Brittany+Rawlinson%2C+junior%2C+Northwestern+High+School&pub=Herald+Online&desc=The+Friendship+Nine+%2F+January+31%2C+1961&pqatl=google |access-date=December 1, 2010 |quote=They were students at Friendship College and called themselves the Friendship Nine. The members of this group were James Wells, William "Dub" Massey, Robert McCullough, John Gaines, William "Scoop" Williamson, Willie McLeod, Thomas Gaither, Clarence Graham, Charles Taylor and Mack Workman. }}{{dead link|date=July 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

====1962 University of Chicago, Illinois====
{{Main|University of Chicago sit-ins}}
In January 1962, [[Bernie Sanders]], then a student at the [[University of Chicago]], helped lead a sit-in in protesting university president [[George Wells Beadle]]'s segregated campus housing policy. 
"We feel it is an intolerable situation, when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders told a crowd of about 200 students. After several days of protests, Beadle met with students to form a commission to investigate discrimination.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Frizell |first=Sam |url=https://time.com/3896500/bernie-sanders-vermont-campaign-radical/ |title=The Radical Education of Bernie Sanders |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=May 26, 2015 |access-date=September 10, 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Perlstein |first=Rick |url=http://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/political-education |title=A political education |work=The University of Chicago Magazine |date=January 2015|access-date=September 10, 2015 }}</ref>