Description

Remarks from Myles Horton on Highlander class on Nashville sit-ins. Horton specifically praises the students who led the movement from Fisk University, Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College, and Nashville Baptist Seminary.The Nashville Sit-Ins were a coordinated effort by black college students and local church leaders Kelly Miller Smith and James Lawson to desegregate Nashville's lunch counters. Less than two weeks after sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina, a group of students, led by Fisk enrollees Diane Nash and John Lewis, entered Kress, McClellan, and Woolworth's, ordered lunch and sat at the counters. Each store refused to serve them. The sit-ins lasted three months, over which many protesters were arrested and attacked, and attorney Z. Alexander Looby's Nashville home was bombed. This strengthened the resolve of the activists who marched on city hall, where Diane Nash demanded change from Mayor Ben West. On May 10, 1960, Nashville lunch counters were officially desegregated, the South's first major city to do so. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/nashville-sit-ins-1960/

Record Contributed By

Tennesse State Library and Archives

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Tennessee