A History of the Civil Rights Movement

4

Sit-In s and Freedom Rides

I n the South, racial segregation meant that managers of restaurants could refuse to serve blacks. It meant that water fountains and rest rooms were labeled as for “Whites” or “Colored.” It meant that whites and blacks did not share swimming pools, libraries, or other public places. The SCLC, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, worked to end segrega tion in all areas of society. Campaigns to end discrimination involved law suits, boycotts of merchants, sit-ins, rallies, and marches. SCLC president Martin Luther King Jr., insisted on conducting challenges to segregation through nonviolence. This strategy of nonviolent resistance would help draw many members—black and white—into the civil rights movement. TARGETING LUNCH COUNTERS The strategy of nonviolence would prove crucial in desegregating American lunch counters. In most places in the South, blacks could not sit at the lunch counters of local department stores or neighborhood restaurants. As a routine practice, these businesses refused to serve food or beverages to African Americans. In 1960, four young black men—Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond—decided to challenge this discrimina