Sit-in

A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.

Process

In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met. Sit-ins have historically been a highly successful form of protest because they cause disruption that draws attention to the protesters' cause. They are a nonviolent way to effectively shut down an area or business. The forced removal of protesters, and sometimes the use of violence against them, often arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators reaching their goal.

A sit-in has some similarities to a sit-down strike. However, whereas a sit-in involves protesters, a sit-down strike involves striking workers occupying the area in which they would be working and refusing to leave so they can not be replaced with scabs. The sit-down strike was the precursor to the sit-in.

History

Sit-ins were first widely employed by Mohandas Gandhi in South African strikes. He may have been influenced by the Indian practice of Dharna, fasting outside the home of someone who owed one a debt. Sit-ins were later used in the Indian independence movement, and were later expanded on by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and others during the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968). Also the protests in Germany. The Young Lords in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood used it successfully for a whole week to win community demands for low income housing investment at the McCormick Theological Seminary.

Early Sit-Ins

The first sit-in aimed at ending desegregation in the United States took place at Read's Drug Store in Baltimore, Maryland. About seven students from Morgan State University occupied the drug store for about half an hour, producing a panic; only two days later, Read's announced to the Baltimore Afro-American that the store would be fully integrated. That year, all 37 Read's counters were integrated.

In July 1958 came the Dockum Drug Store sit-in in Wichita, Kansas. In early August the drugstore became integrated. A few weeks later on August 19, 1958 in Oklahoma City a nationally recognized sit-in at the Katz Drug Store lunch counter occurred. The Oklahoma City Sit-in Movement was led by NAACP Youth Council leader Clara Luper, a local high school teacher, and young local students, including Luper's eight-year old daughter, who suggested the Sit-in be held. The group quickly desegregated the Katz Drug Store lunch counters. It took several more years, but she and the students, using the tactic, integrated all of Oklahoma City's eating establishments. Today, in downtown Wichita, Kansas, stands a statue depicting a waitress at a counter serving people, honoring this pioneering sit-in.

1960 Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins

Following the Oklahoma City sit-ins, the tactic of non-violent student sit-ins spread. The Greensboro Sit-In at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation. Within weeks, sit-in campaigns had begun in nearly a dozen cities, primarily targeting Woolworth's and S. H. Kress and other stores of other national chains.

The largest, and best organized of these sit-in campaigns was the already ongoing, in terms of its planning and groundwork, Nashville sit-ins. They involved hundreds of participants, and led to the successful desegregation of Nashville lunch counters. Most of the participants in the Nashville sit-ins were college students, and many, such as Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, and C.T. Vivian, went on to lead, strategize, and direct almost every aspect of the nation's Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The students of the historically black colleges and universities in the city played a critical role in implementing the Nashville sit-ins.

See also

• Bed-In, peace campaigns by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969
• Die-in
• Human Be-In
• Teach-in
• Work-in
• Occupation (protest)
• Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• Ahimsa
• Anti-war
• Anarcho-pacifism
• Christian anarchism
• Christian pacifism
• Civil disobedience
• Civil resistance
• Conflict Resolution
• Consistent life ethic
• Department of Peace
• Direct action
• Non-aggression principle
• Nonkilling
• Nonresistance
• Nonviolent Communication
• Nonviolent resistance
• Nonviolent revolution
• Occupy movement protests
• Pacifism
• Satyagraha
• Social defence
• Transformative justice
• Turning the other cheek
• War resister

External links

• Award Winning Documentary: "February One" tells the inspiring story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that helped revitalize the Civil Rights Movement
• Sit-In: A Tactical Analysis, By Aaron Kreider – Essay based on research on student sit-ins.
• Almost-Forgotten History – Story of the Wichita Dockum sit-ins
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans Multiple articles and personal stories regarding the civil rights sit-ins of the 1960s.