1961 March 7

Sit-In Victory: Atlanta Stores Desegregate Lunch Counters

 

A year after sit-ins began in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 15, 1960, lunch counters operated by major chain stores agreed to desegregate on this day.

This event was one of the major victories of the sit-in movement, which began in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960, and quickly spread across the South.

One of the leaders of the March 1960 Atlanta sit-ins was Julian Bond, who was later elected to the Georgia legislature, denied his seat because of his political views, and then seated under a decision by the Supreme Court on December 5, 1966.

Learn more about the Atlanta sit-in movement at the Civil Rights Movement Veterans web site: http://www.crmvet.org/info/60asmtim.htm

Read the Atlanta students’ 1960 petition, An Appeal for Human Rights: http://www.crmvet.org/docs/aa4hr.htm

Hear the music of the Civil Rights Movement (11 songs): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFc8glsWjgU&list=PLYwfZ_bASjn25XLL6KrVH6F4d8TqlTBog

More about the Atlanta movement: http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/atlanta-students-sit-us-civil-rights-1960-1961

Learn more: Iwan W. Morgan and Philip Davies, From Sit-ins to SNCC: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s (2012)

Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here

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