19 November 2010

The Woolworth sit-in (1963)

Our Woolworth Sit-In, Jackson Mississippi, 5/28/63 was the most violently attacked sit-in of the '60s and the most publicized. Involving a White mob of several hundred, it went on for several hours while hostile police from Jackson's huge all-White police department stood by approvingly outside and while hostile FBI agents inside (in sun-glasses) "observed." Seated, left to right are Hunter Gray (John R. Salter, Jr.) -- Native American; Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), a White Southern student at our private Black college, Tougaloo College [one of two White students at Tougaloo]; Anne Moody, Black, from Wilkinson County, Mississippi. I, Gray [Salter] was a very young Tougaloo professor; and Joan and Anne were my students. All of us are covered with sugar, salt, mustard, and other slop. I was beaten many times -- fists, brass knuckles, and a broken glass sugar container -- and am covered with blood. 
More at the link.

5 comments:

  1. "The good old days..." The past doesn't always look so nice with the rose colored glasses taken off.

    My father and his father took plenty of trips around the south in those days and those tales make it sound like somewhere else other then the United States.

    The stupidity and cruelty of the mob worked against them, thankfully.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is this what it means when people say "I want to take my country back"? Is this the destination?

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Jack," I'm afraid that this is EXACTLY where they want to take the country. As someone who has lived in the rural South for the last 45 years, I have seen these sentiments expressed all to frequently.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's sad what humans can do to other humans. Something must have gone wrong with our DNA during evolution.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Evolution!? It's called sin, and all humans are born in to it.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...