Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 64

Although the Greensboro, North Carolina, Sit-in captured national attention in February 1960, it was preceded by the action of seven young African American Durhamites, who three years earlier entered the Royal Ice Cream parlor, sat in the whites-only section, and requested service. Because the Royal Ice Cream parlor was located in the African American community and those seeking service were required to enter by the back door and stand, it was selected as the protest site. Led by the Reverend Douglas E. Moore, the protesters included Mary Clyburn, Claud Glenn, Jesse Gray, Vivian Jones, Melvin Willis, and Virginia Williams. They entered the parlor on June 23, 1957, and were subsequently arrested and fined $25 each. It was their hope that their actions would test Durham’s segregation laws. However, no redress came from the judicial branch, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Sit-ins in North Carolina had occurred as early as 1943, and, like the Durham sit-in of 1957, received little or no publicity. While the protesters’ action did not result in a change of Jim Crow policy, it did signal the growing restlessness with America’s system of racial segregation. The Reverend Moore, a classmate of Martin Luther King Jr. and pastor of the Asbury Temple Methodist Church, and Floyd McKissick, who headed the NAACP Youth Council, trained students to conduct sit-in protests. The 1957 Durham sit-in and its attendant court cases barely stoked the embers. However, in February of 1960, Durham and other cities across the South became hotbeds for sit-in protests. It was in Durham that King made his 1960 “Fill Up the Jails” speech endorsing the sit-ins as a method of direct non-violent confrontation against the South’s racial segregation laws.

Linda T. Wynn