Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,886 posts)
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 11:48 AM Jun 2020

June 1960: It's the sixtieth anniversary of the Arlington County lunch counter sit-ins.

Protester harassed during sit-in at segregated drugstore lunch counter, Arlington, Virginia, [June 10,] 1960: #Chinn



More...



Note the swastika. This is the same year George Lincoln Rockwell rebranded his movement as the American nazi party which was headquartered in Arlington.



Here's a lot more about this:

ARLINGTON COUNTY SIT-INS
How A Group of Students Desegregated the County's Restaurants and Lunch Counters

On June 9, 1960, just after 1 pm, about a dozen people walked into the People’s Drug Store at 4709 Lee Highway in Cherrydale and began what would become a peaceful County-wide demonstration for the right of all people to be served at what had historically been white-only lunch counters. Although African Americans could patronize stores as clientele, employees refused to serve customers of color at the lunch counters within the stores.

In February of the same year, students protested at a segregated lunch counter at an F. W. Woolworth department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sparked a series of similar sit-ins throughout the South. In response, Virginia’s Governor Lindsay Almond passed three bills through the Virginia Assembly that criminalized trespassing to attempt to prevent similar picketing in the Commonwealth.

Inspired by the protests in Greensboro, several Howard University students and local allies founded an integrated group of activists against segregation and racism under the name of the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG.) In June 1960, this group, which included Lawrence Henry, Dion Diamond, Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), Gwendolyn Greene (now Britt), Cornelia Greene, Charles Cobb, David Hartsough, Helene Wilson, Walter De Legall, Paul Carr, Ethelene Crockett, Paul Dietrich, Jean Donnelly, Mike Proctor, James E. Browne, Emily Malkin (now Flynn), William Griffin, Martin Schain, Antonia Lewis, and Clyde McDowell, organized demonstrations over various days at seven lunch counters across Arlington. The demonstrations featured black protesters buying goods to establish themselves as customers, while black and white protesters ordered food at the counters. Black demonstrators were not served food, so white protesters passed their food to the black students to de facto desegregate the counters. Demonstrators sometimes engaged employees in conversations about desegregation but often sat reading the Bible in silence or to each other.

{snip}

Lunch Counter Sit-Ins

by Charlie Clark (originally published on November 5, 2013 in the Falls Church News Press, used with permission)

The current Arlington Magazine includes a haunting photo, tossed in almost marginally as part of a timeline of county history.

The image is of black civil rights activist Dion Diamond sitting on a counter stool at the old Cherrydale Drug Fair, engaging in a sit-in to protest segregation, on June 10, 1960.

The brave protester, calmly reading a newspaper, is surrounded by a pack of white teenagers – slicked-back hair, Elvis sideburns, T-shirts, some guys grinning, some with menacing nonchalance alongside a few curious bystanders.

The image jarred me because at the time I was right across Lee Highway finishing first grade at the since-closed Cherrydale Elementary School. The photo credited to Washington Star photographer Gus Chinn captures that lost soda fountain world. In the background, you can see telephone booths and shopper signs for books and tobacco. Those white kids circling around Diamond staring down the “outside agitator” could have been guys I encountered in my neighborhood.

{snip}
2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
June 1960: It's the sixtieth anniversary of the Arlington County lunch counter sit-ins. (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Jun 2020 OP
I sure do remember those 1st sit-ins. Set off a wave all across the south bobbieinok Jun 2020 #1
My county, in the news! soothsayer Jun 2020 #2

bobbieinok

(12,858 posts)
1. I sure do remember those 1st sit-ins. Set off a wave all across the south
Thu Jun 11, 2020, 12:05 PM
Jun 2020

Spread to Houston that spring and continued though the next year---my senior yr in college?

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»Virginia»June 1960: It's the sixti...