Civil Rights Events

Sit-Ins

Nashville -- Opposing Values Collide

 

Just shy of 22 years old, Diane Nash became one of the leaders in the Nashville Student Central Committee, which would organize the actual sit-ins at discriminatory restaurants throughout the city.  Leading up to her first sit-in, in February 1960, Nash worried about being arrested. She’d voiced her concern in the workshops, saying that she’d help with phone calls and organizing but in the end, she would not go to jail. “But when the time came, I went,” she says, of the dozens of arrests she’d face in the not too distant future (Morgan 1)
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We felt we were right. We felt we were right, and rational. When we took a position that segregation was, was wrong, and we really tried to be open and honest and loving with our opposition. A person who is being truthful and honest, actually is, is standing in a much more powerful position than a person who's lying, or trying to maintain his preference, even though on some level he knows he's wrong. I think, on some level, most people really deep-down know that segregation was wrong, just based on race, and disregarding everything else about the person (Interview Nash 5).

Well, the first time [February 13] we took a seat at a lunch counter [John Lewis recalled] and we were denied service, they said, "We don't serve you; you can't be served." It was a great feeling; it was my first real act of protesting against this system of segregation. I sort of had this feeeling for some time that you just wanted to strike a blow for freedom and this was a great sense of pride to be able to sit down and at the same time become part of an organized effort (Interview Lewis 4).

Diane Nash recalled her feelings of anticipation before sitting down in protest. People used to tickle me, talking about how brave I was, sitting in, and marching, and what have you, because I was so scared. All the time. It was like wall-to-wall terrified. I can remember sitting in class, many times, before demonstrations, and I knew, like, we were going to have a demonstration that afternoon. And the palms of hands would be so sweaty, and I would be so tense and tight inside. I was really afraid. The movement had a way of reaching inside me and bringing out things that I never knew were there. Like courage, and love for people. It was a real experience, to be among a group of people who would put their bodies between you and danger. And to love people that you work with enough, that you would put yours between them and danger.

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… the first sit-in we had, was really funny, because the waitresses were nervous. And they must have dropped $2,000 worth of dishes that day ....  I mean, literally, it was almost a cartoon. Because I can remember one in particular, she, she was so nervous, she picked up dishes and she dropped one and, and she'd pick up another one, and she'd drop it and another. It was really funny, and we were sitting there trying not to laugh, because we thought that, that laughing would be insulting and you know, we didn't want to create that kind of atmosphere. At the same time, we were scared to death (Interview Nash 5-6).

The students continued their sit-in efforts. Interviewed years later, John Lewis revealed that they occupied lunch counter stools on Tuesdays and Thursdays. “We didn't have any classes on those days and we continued to go down to the lunch counters and restaurants to sit in.”

 

We would continue to sit and some days we would stay all day and take turns. A shift of students would stay there until they were forced to close the lunch counters completely. Or we would occupy all of the seats. In some instances, stores like Woolworth's and Kress's, McClelland's, would just close the stores. And that continued for a period of time (Interview Lewis 5).

The protest soon attracted the support of other students (black and white) and the numbers soon went into the hundreds. The organisers of the sit-in were concerned that not all those involved in the protest had been schooled in non-violent techniques (Trueman 1).

 

There were people who couldn't take it [John Lewis later stated], couldn't take the discipline. But they did other things, like picking people up and taking them to the meeting places, or passing out leaflets, or making signs. But they couldn't handle putting themselves in positions where they could be attacked or arrested. And it was good that they knew that (Nance 1).

 

 Therefore, two students, Bernard Layfayette and John Lewis, produced a handout for all those involved with their ’10 Rules of Conduct’. These were the required standards for all those who were supporting the protest. The rules stated:

 

Do Not:

 

Strike back nor curse if abused … Hold conversations with a floor walker. Leave your seat until your leader has given you permission to do so. Block entrances to stores outside nor the aisles inside.

 

Do:

 

Show yourself friendly and courteous at all times Sit straight: always face the counter. Report all serious incidents to your leader. Refer information seekers to your leader in a polite manner. Remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Love and non-violence is the way.

 

Towards the end of February, the mood of the store managers had become more ugly and supporters of segregation gathered at the stores concerned, along with the demonstrators (Trueman 1-2).

 

The first violent response to the protests came on February 27 ….  The protesters were attacked by a white group opposed to desegregation. The police arrested eighty-one protesters; none of the attackers was arrested. Those arrested were found guilty of disorderly conduct. They all decided to serve time in jail rather than pay fines.

 

This was a day [John Lewis divulged] when we had been warned by a local white minister, Will Campbell, who had told us he had word from a reliable source that we would be arrested and that there would be some form of violence. A small group of us, on that day—it was a cold day in Nashville, we even had snow—on that particular day, went down and started sitting in at Woolworth's and later during the day there was some violence on the part of a young white teenager who pulled students off the seats or put lighted cigarettes down their backs, that type of thing. We continued to sit (Interview Lewis 5-6).

Lewis had been hit.   He escaped having a lighted cigarette put down his back.

Diane Nash found something amusing in her day’s experience.  The day that the police first arrested us was interesting too, because their attitude, they had made a decision they were going to arrest us if we sat-in that day, and so, they announced to us "O.K., all you nigras, get up from the lunch counter or we're going to arrest you". And their attitude was like, well, we warned you. So they repeated it a couple of times, and nobody moved. And of course, we were prepared for this. So they said, "Well, we warned you, you won't move, O.K. Everybody's under arrest." So we all get up and marched to the wagon.  But everybody who was at the lunch counter was arrested. So then the police had the attitude like, O.K., we warned them, they didn't listen. And then they turned and they looked around the lunch counter again, and the second wave of students had all taken seats. And they were confounded, kind of looked at each other like, "now what do we do", you know? They said well, O.K., we'll arrest those too, and they did it. Then the third wave. No matter what they did and how many they arrested, there was still a lunch counter full of students, there (Interview Nash 7).

 

“We refused to strike back,” John Lewis recalled.  I think studying and attending the nonviolence workshops we had been disciplined to understand, to be willing to adjust to the violence, the pain and the hurt. At the same time we didn't concentrate on what happened to us. But we were there for a purpose and the arrest. It just sort of inspired us. I didn't have any bad feelings about it. I didn't necessarily want to go to jail. But we knew, in a sense, using that particular method really as a tactic at that point that it would help solidify the student community and the black community as a whole. The student community did rally. The people heard that we had been arrested and before the end of the day, five hundred students made it into the downtown area to occupy other stores and restaurants. At the end of the day ninety-eight of us were in jail. There were mass meetings all over the city that Sunday. We refused to come out of jail. We didn't want anyone to go our bond. But early Sunday morning, the colleges and universities there had put up the necessary bail money and we were let go (Interview Lewis 7).

 

Works cited:

“Interview with Diane Nash.” Eyes on the Prize Interview.  Washington University Digital Gateway Texts.  November 12, 1985.  Web.  http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb/nas0015.0267.075dianenash.html

 

“Interview with John Lewis.”  Southern Oral History Program Collection.  Documenting the American South.  November 20, 1973.  Web.   https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/A-0073/A-0073.html

 

Morgan, Thad.  “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.”  History.  March 8, 2018.  Web.  https://www.history.com/news/diane-nash-freedom-rider-civil-rights-movement.

Nance, Kevin.  “John Lewis on 'March: Book One. “  Chicago Tribune.  August 23, 2013.  Web.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-xpm-2013-08-23-ct-prj-0825-march-john-lewis-20130823-story.html

 

Trueman, C. N.  “Nashville Sit Ins.”  historylearningsite.co.uk.  March 27, 2015.  Web.  https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-civil-rights-movement-in-america-1945-to-1968/nashville-sit-ins/.