Full transcript
0:01So after Little Rock, the movement
0:04assumed a much younger face. Direct
0:07non-violent activism was now something
0:10young black Americans wanted to involve
0:13themselves in.
0:15The 60s opened in February 1st, 1960
0:19when four North Carolina ENT students
0:22began a sixth monthlong process that
0:25sparked a larger sitin movement across
0:28the South among both college and high
0:31school students. Those students walked
0:34down to the Woolworth's department store
0:35from campus there in Greensboro, North
0:38Carolina. They entered the diner of the
0:42department store and sat down and
0:43ordered a cup of coffee. Now, it wasn't
0:46particularly unusual that black students
0:50would be in this diner. The diner was
0:52used to serving black patrons. It just
0:55required that they stand at the end of
0:57the counter and take their food to go.
1:01But these students sat down at the
1:03counter and asked for coffee.
1:06The weight staff ignored them for a
1:08number of hours and they sat there all
1:10afternoon waiting to get served. The
1:13next day they returned with more
1:15students and within a day or two the
1:17entire Woolworth diner was full of black
1:20patrons that the weight staff wouldn't
1:24serve. So this went on for a number of
1:28months. Uh the situation was tense. Uh
1:31there were protesters inside and outside
1:34both for the students and against the
1:36students. Um the situation was such that
1:41it led people to worry about their own
1:45safety in downtown Greensboro, which was
1:48really the point, right? The students
1:50know that they are tempting white
1:53racists into attacking them. So they
1:56know that the middle class housewives of
2:00Greensboro who used to go downtown to
2:02shop won't come down if they feel unsafe
2:05and that this would ultimately hurt the
2:08other businesses of downtown Greensboro,
2:10which is precisely what happened.
2:13Woolworths continued to refuse service
2:16and housewives of Greensboro began
2:19looking for other places to shop. other
2:22stores that were sort of mom and pop
2:24stores, not big chains that could make
2:26money other places like Woolworths began
2:29to suffer. So eventually the Chamber of
2:32Commerce leaned on Woolworth hard enough
2:34that it
2:36made them serve the students to end the
2:39civin so that white women would come
2:42back downtown and start spending their
2:43money elsewhere.
2:46So
2:47this young person's protest, this
2:50non-violent sitin, was a success in that
2:52it got them what they wanted. It got
2:54them service in wars. It also
2:58demonstrated they had learned from the
3:00Montgomery bus boycott that if you hit
3:02white people in the pocketbook, they
3:04would eventually fold. And perhaps most
3:06importantly, that summer of 1960, the
3:10people who are involved in coordinating
3:13this event at Woolworth
3:16went to Raleigh and organized the
3:18student non-violent coordinating
3:20committee or SNIK. They met at Shaw
3:22University there and began holding
3:25workshops for interested students,
3:27mostly black, but some white from across
3:29the South and the Midwest who wanted to
3:32learn to practice non-violent protests.
3:35And so out of that summer workshop of
3:371960 would come more sitins and protests
3:42across the South. Eventually, SNIK would
3:45come to partner with SCLC to act as a
3:48sort of multi-racial
3:52army of foot soldiers who were willing
3:55to stand up to uh segregation.
4:00The following year, the Congress on
4:02racial equality or core staged a freedom
4:05ride. Now, CORE had been around since
4:071945. It was started by black and white
4:10veterans to protest segregated society
4:14and they had been riding buses to the
4:18south and defying segregated spaces
4:20since the late 1940s. But the ride of
4:241961 was the one that had the most
4:28success. Um that summer uh that spring
4:34and that summer that ride made it made
4:36it all the way to Aniston, Alabama,
4:40at which point the clan blocked the bus
4:42as it was uh driving down the highway uh
4:46before firebombing the bus and forcing
4:49the protesters off. Uh, a couple of the
4:53protesters, including John Brown, who
4:56would go on to be a congressman for a
4:57number of years, were caught and beaten
4:59up. The rest of them hid in the woods
5:01overnight. And then the next day, they
5:03asked for Greyhound to honor their
5:06tickets the rest of the trip to Dallas.
5:08So Greyhound had to send another bus to
5:13take these guys on, but they didn't do
5:15it until President Kennedy, John F.
5:18Kennedy
5:19um would lent his support and the white
5:23off the White House did that by sending
5:27the Justice Department uh under the
5:30leadership of Robert F. Kennedy, the
5:31president's brother, to escort the bus
5:35to its destination to make sure that the
5:37company didn't lose another bus. So the
5:40freedom right of 61 is important because
5:43it demonstrated again that they could
5:45force federal involvement and that they
5:47were willing to do it time and again.
5:50Activists wanted JFK to be involved and
5:53he had resisted until 1961. Um he spoke
5:57a good game about uh civil rights in his
6:01election campaigns in 1959 and 60 but he
6:05really hadn't done a whole lot seeing
6:07the cold war and the economy is much
6:09more important. But now
6:13now that core had made civil rights
6:16something the federal government would
6:18have to get involved with because it was
6:19interstate commerce and under federal
6:22regulation. the president would have to
6:24begin working harder to honor promises
6:27he had made to people. So grassroots
6:31activists from this point forward are
6:33going to double down on their local
6:35efforts, tempting fate to work at
6:39getting a civic education to the black
6:43Americans of the South to encourage
6:45voter registration drives.
6:48really resisting segregated society by
6:51involving themselves in winning
6:53America's heart and getting trying to
6:55encourage the federal government to pass
6:56laws that would make life fair so
6:59politics could work to reflect black and
7:02white citizens of the South.