Summary Of Nashville: The Cornerstone Of The Sit-In Movement

Nashville: The Cornerstone of the Sit-In Movement

Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph McNeil and David Richmond were freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina located in Greensboro. On February 1, 1960, they walked to the F.W. Woolworth Company store, sat on stools meant exclusively for white customers and asked to be served. When they were denied, they remained seated until the store closed. The story of the “Greensboro Four” initiated a movement that would eventually accumulate to over 70,000 sit-in participants within the next year in downtowns all across America.1 While Greensboro did initiate the movement, it would not have been sustained without the help of Nashville, TN. By comparing and contrasting the

sit-in movements within the cities of Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta, and Jacksonville, is it evident that Nashville contained a near perfect culmination of the various qualities necessary to create a model for all other cities to follow.
In general, the state of downtowns in the United States on February 1, 1960 was a result of racial zoning and discrimination that had been occurring for years.

In the 1920’s, investors were concerned with attracting the white, middle-class woman shoppers and repelling African American shoppers. When property values crashed during the Great Depression, white investors used racial discrimination to defend their property values rather than including those individuals to boost sales and business. By the 1950’s suburban areas were growing with white middle-class citizens and the usually poorer, nonwhite customers from nearby residential neighborhoods permeated the downtown areas. White people began to fear that the slums were taking over the prized but depleting downtown areas. According to Isenberg in her collection of studies in Downtown America, “To many downtown investors, the prospect of serving poor, nonwhite shoppers was a “nightmare”, not a vision, of future urban commercial life”.2 Racial tensions grew and propelled the urgency of white citizens to push for urban renewal (sometimes referenced as ‘Negro Removal’) in order to help dictate who should be downtown. In opposition, blacks increasingly began to demand rights and access within the downtown

area.
Specifically, Greensboro’s downtown was threatened by the migration of the wealthy, white middle and upper class to the suburbs. The City of Greensboro explained, “Both railroads and college campuses influenced the development of suburbs, as people chose to live outside the congested business district and around the colleges”. In the 1920’s, new neighborhoods in the northwest outskirts of downtown were created exclusively for white citizens. In contrast, the poorer minority populations dominated the east side slums, closer to downtown.3 As western areas further developed with shopping centers, the black population became more concentrated downtown which resulted in the downtown becoming less popular among white citizens. In the 1950’s, Greensboro was home to Guildford College, Greensboro College, Bennett College, UNCG and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, which further transformed Greensboro into a a more cultured education center for African Americans. The combination of increasing social status among educated blacks and decreasing eminence downtown promoted the white population to look for ways to utilize urban renewal to reinstate superiority through segregation.
Greensboro’s location was chosen primarily for its geographic center.4 In contrast, Nashville’s location was strategically located by the Cumberland River, a natural advantage. After the Civil War, Nashville rebuilt with new growth in business and industry. Railroads, slaughterhouses, iron foundries, lumber mills and industrial facilities relating to river work surrounded the city and provided jobs for unskilled workers. Each of these facilities required cheap labor that lived nearby, erecting concentrated slums in often low land areas. Mostly immigrants and African Americans were forced to live in filthy, tight spaces within the famous slums of Hell’s Half Acre, Black Bottom and Crappy Shoot. All of which were infested with crime, disease, brothels, and dives.5 Each of these slums were intensified by the poverty of the Great Depression and became the focus of urban renewal movements in the mid-1900s. Similar to Greensboro, Nashville was an even more prominent educational center beginning the founding of Fisk University in 1866 and Vanderbilt University in 1873. Especially important for the black population, Fisk was the first free school for African Americans in Nashville. Shortly after, Meharry Medical College opened in 1876 and became the first medical school for African Americans in the country. 6
The commercial and industrial ventures in downtown Nashville pushed the newly rich white population out of the central city neighborhoods.7 Especially after World War II, Nashville experienced rapid growth as people moved out of old urban neighborhoods and into new suburbs.

This created many problems because the new suburbs enjoyed many of the city perks without paying the taxes that funded the services. The individuals of the suburbs were not provided with the services of a fire department or sewage system so they did not want to pay the same taxes as the city dwellers. Eventually, in 1962, the Metropolitan government was created and the outer neighborhoods were annexed. As a result, the outer country neighborhoods had to pay taxes, but they were lower than that of the city dwellers until they were provided with the same equal services that the city dwellers received. This new Metropolitan Government reinforced the wealthy white populations movement to the suburbs of Berry Hill, Belle Meade, Goodlettsville, Lakewood and other growing communities outside the city.8
 Meanwhile, urban renewal was demolishing the homes and slums of inner-city residents. The slums mentioned previously housed thousands of inner-city residents and often had no running water, no heat, unsafe wiring and significantly lower life-expectancy rates. The government began to implement public housing, with the idea that removing the individuals from the slums and putting them into new, clean environments

would improve their lives, self-image and behavior. In 1937, Congress passed a national housing act that offered millions of dollars from federal funding for public housing projects. The urban planning and beautification movement’s push for the removal of slums was clearly evident in the Capitol Hill Redevelopment Project, which displaced 301 families and 196 single residents. Most of these residents were African American and they were forced into the low-rent public housing projects that had long waiting lists, so essentially they had no place to go.9
In response to the increasing interracial tension, in 1958, Nashville local black leaders founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference (NCLC). The organization headed a workshop on using nonviolent tactics to combat segregation on March 26-28 in 1958. This workshop was run under the leadership of Reverend Kelly Smith, who was pastor of First Colored Baptist Church on 8th Avenue. Theses workshops were held in the church’s basement, which eventually transformed to the NCLC headquarters.10
Shortly after, James Lawson began to transform the student body of Nashville. Lawson was born in Western Pennsylvania, but went to school in Ohio. He was imprisoned for a year because he was a conscientious objector because he refused to fight or be a part of the draft in the Korean War. After he was released, Lawson became a missionary in India, where he was deeply inspired by the nonviolent resistance teachings of Mohandas Gandhi. He returned and became a divinity student at Oberlin College in Ohio, but Dr. Martin Luther King summoned him to the South to help the Civil Rights Movement.11 He transferred to Vanderbilt University and began holding workshops in church basements downtown for students from Vanderbilt University, Fisk, American Baptist College, Meharry Medical College and Tennessee Agriculture and Industrial State University. He worked with his peers and convinced them that they could overcome segregation through righteousness and nonviolent acts. In his workshops, both black and white students engaged in role-playing exercises to train them to withstand the taunts of the segregationists and to protect them for retaliation. 12 Lawson used the philosophy of Ghandi in attempt to desegregate, but not destroy the downtown area in Nashville. 
 In contrast, the Greensboro Four did not have training in nonviolence and were unsophisticated in their actions. In fact, they had only planned their protest the night before without elaborate preparation or community based initiative. They chose to sit in at the nearby Woolworth’s Department Store because it exploited the business of black customers at every counter except the lunch counter.13 This allowed white businessmen to utilize and oppress the black population simultaneously. The Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina was located less than one and half miles from Woolworth’s. On February 1st, 1960, the first sit-in consisted of only four individuals. On February 2nd, the number grew to 24. By Thursday, February 4th over 300 students participated in the sit-in. The numbers continued to grow until protests were suspended for two weeks in order to allow stores time to set new policies. When they did not, the protests resumed and eventually led to the closing, rather than integration, of many lunch counters.14 It was not until July 16th, 1960 that Greensboro’s Woolworth’s finally decided to integrate the lunch counters after having lost over $200,000 of anticipated business or 20% of anticipated sales.15
Concurrently, on Wednesday, February 3rd, word of the sit-ins in Greensboro reached Nashville because of an article in the Tennessean. Reverend Douglass Moore, a minister in Greensboro and a friend of Lawson’s, called Lawson and beseeched him to get Nashville involved. That same evening, Lewis held a mass meeting with over 500 students to begin discussing and organizing how the students would get involved. On February 6th, 45 students participated in a “sympathy sit-in” for Greensboro while other students continued in training. Lawson was hesitant to start Nashville’s own sit-in movement because the NCLC did not have the funds to bail out the students who would be inevitably arrested. On February 10th, another meeting at Fisk University took place and the students argued against further delays. Lawson reluctantly listened to the students and scheduled the first sit-in to take place on February 13th. On February 12th, a meeting was held at First Colored Baptist Church with over 600 attendees to review the proper procedures for the next day.16
On February 13th, 124 activists assembled at First Colored Baptist Church and marched in pairs toward 5th Avenue. Each of the participants were assigned to one of the department stores, including Woolworth, McClellan, W.T. Grant and Kress.17 The first sit-in resulted in no arrests or casualties. In fact, Diane Nash, a participant and future activist leader, reflected, “ And the first sit-in we had was really funny, because the waitresses were nervous. They must have dropped $2,000 worth of dishes that day! I mean, literally, it was almost a cartoon.”18 The protestors were not served, white customers were stunned and eventually left in disgust, and a “COUNTER CLOSED” sign was placed on the counter before the lights were cut prior to normal closing time. 19
 Five days later, on February 18th, approximately 200 individuals staged the second sit-in and once again received minimal responses from white citizens or shopkeepers. Two days later, there were 340 participants. By February 26th, the police warned Lawson that there would be arrests if more sit-ins occurred. The officer also warned that there were rumors that white thugs would react violently if the movement continued. Nevertheless, on February 27th, also known as “Big Saturday”, the sit-in demonstrators were punched, burned by cigarettes, shoved away from the counters and ultimately arrested for their participation. Under the command of Lewis, the protestors who were attacked and arrested were replaced immediately, wave by wave, until closing. The state said that activists were arrested on the charges of “unlawful conspiracy to commit acts injurious to public trade and commerce”. The individuals arrested were required to post a bond of $100 but it was quickly lowered to $5 because there was no more room left in the jail. Meanwhile, there were still over 500 individuals waiting to be arrested downtown.20 The black community rallied and offered to pay bail and support the students with money for attorneys. However, the students refused to pay the fines. Diane Nash explained, "We feel that if we pay these fines we would be contributing to, and supporting, the injustice and immoral practices that have been performed in the arrest and conviction of the defendants".21 Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt University because of his involvement in “Big Saturday”, which sparked fear of expulsion among the students.22 However, the sit-ins did not stop.