Lunch Counter Protests

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Lunch counter protests were a main part of the civil rights movement. It helped get restaurants and other public places to allow both races to come in and do the same thing as each other. Of course the African Americans got hurt and arrested and other things done to them. The first sit-in happened on February 1, 1960 and it took place in Greensboro, North Carolina at the Woolworth lunch counter (“Freedom Struggle- Separate is Not Equal”). Once the sit-ins started, more and more people joined. The movement didn’t just stay in one spot, they spread everywhere. The sit-ins included whites, African Americans, males and females. Four African American college students were the first ones to do the sit-ins because they are the ones that started …show more content…
and David Richmond (International Civil Rights Center & Museum). They were just college students that ordered drinks but got refused so they stayed there and studied until the place closed for the day and then the next day they went back and did the same thing. They were taunted by white patrons but they still didn’t leave because they were fighting for their rights (International Civil Rights Center & Museum). The movement eventually spread to other states and gained more supporters. More whites joined and by the end of February the movement had spread to more than 30 cities in 8 states (International Civil Rights Center & Museum). The more people that joined, the more that were arrested. By August of 1961, 3,000 people were arrested for different things (International Civil Rights Center & Museum). But getting arrested didn’t stop the movement. No matter what happened they kept on doing it to let people know that they were serious and that they wouldn’t let anybody or anything get in their …show more content…
Many people were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct, or disturbing the peace ("Greensboro Sit-In - Black History"). They couldn’t just arrest them for being there, so they had to come up with other reasons. Even when people got arrested, more people would fill the seats that became empty and it kept the movement going on. African Americans occupied 63 out of 66 seats and the other 3 were occupied by waitresses. ("History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places | Smithsonian"). At the end of the movement they had accomplished the goal that they had set. On July 25, 1960, F.W. Woolworth Lunch counter was finally desegregated (“Freedom Struggle- Separate is Not Equal”). Once they did that, more and more public places were changing too. The four college students that started it were proud of what they had started and what had gotten done about it. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which made it illegal to have segregation of any public place ("Log In - The New York
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