Civil Rights Sit-Ins

The Nashville sit-in movement was one of many direct, non-violent protests that took place across the South. What is a sit-in you ask? It is a form of protest in which demonstrators occupy a place, refusing to leave until their demands are met. The movement did not begin in Nashville but rather in Greensboro, North Carolina. Four college freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University captured the nation’s attention with their February 1, 1960 sit-in at the all-white Woolworth’s lunch counter. Nashville students, along with leaders of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, abbreviated NCLC, conducted “test sit-ins” in November and December 1959 to affirm the city’s exclusionary racial policy of segregated eating establishments.

The NCLC and Nashville Student Group waged a two-pronged approach to desegregating the city’s eating establishments. First, they wanted to draw public and media attention to the moral injustice of segregated lunch counters. Second, they wanted to demonstrate the buying power of the African American community through an economic boycott. They adopted the slogan “don’t buy downtown,” which was incredibly effective.

Most of the students were from Nashville’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities, abbreviated HBCUs, which included Fisk University, Tennessee A&I (today’s TSU), American Baptist College, and Meharry Medical College. In preparation, the Reverend James Lawson, a student at Vanderbilt’s School of Divinity, conducted workshops to train the students in Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent direct action. The workshops were held at Clark Memorial Methodist and First Baptist Capitol Hill Churches.

Throughout the spring, students conducted numerous sit-ins. They suffered verbal and physical abuse, arrests, fines, and incarceration, but held steadfastly to the concept of Christian nonviolence. Leaders of the Nashville sit-in movement included Diane Nash, John Lewis, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, and the Reverend C. T. Vivian. They stood up for equal rights by sitting down. Together with thousands of others, young and old alike, this successful campaign became the model for cities across the South.

Hi, I’m Linda Wynn, and I am a professor of history at Fisk University and the assistant director for state programs at the Tennessee Historical Commission. Let us walk the path of Nashville’s Civil Rights protesters who defied the laws of discrimination and tour the first southern city to desegregate its downtown eating establishments. The tour’s first stop is on the corner of Sixth Avenue North and Church Street.

Begin the tour at the corner of Sixth Avenue North and Church Street.