Civil Rights Movement Overview - Fourth Street Sit-In Demonstration Sites

Civil Rights Movement Overview - Fourth Street Sit-In Demonstration Sites. . , In Spring 1960, sit-in demonstrations spread throughout the South, as young African Americans demanded an end to second-class treatment in restaurants, department stores, and movie theaters. In Louisville, the sit-in campaign for an ordinance against discrimination in such accommodations centered on the shopping and dining corridor along Fourth Street in the heart of downtown. Earlier demonstrations set the precedent for the campaign, including NAACP Youth Council sit-ins at Walgreens in 1956, demonstrations at the Brown Theater in 1959, and CORE protests at Kaufman-Straus in 1960. Then, in February 1961, African American high school students sat-in at the lunch counter at Stewart's department store, triggering a mass protest movement that lasted through the Spring. The students and their adult supporters met nightly at nearby Quinn Chapel and the Church of Our Merciful Savor to strategize and take a pledge to remain nonviolent before marching to their downtown targets, including the popular Blue Boar Cafeteria and Fourth Street theaters. Despite the mass arrests of sit-in participants, the movement grew and adopted new tactics. By March, civil rights leaders launched the “Nothing New for Easter” campaign, a boycott to pressure department stores to change their policies. In the summer the movement focused on the upcoming city elections for a new mayor and aldermen. In November, 1961, the black community went to the polls and successfully “cleaned house,” voting to remove all the aldermen who had opposed a civil rights ordinance. The new board did not act immediately, but in May 1963, after renewed demonstrations and pressure from civil rights leaders, the city adopted the first public accommodations ordinance in the South., , "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line" , W.E.B. Du Bois, Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. J. Blaine Hudson (September 8, 1949 - January 5, 2013) , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences (2005-2012), Text by Dr. Tracy E. K'Meyer.