Black Southern Student Sit-In (Morris)

Black Southern Student Sit-in Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization
Author(s): Aldon Morris

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 46, No. 6 (Dec., 1981), pp. 744-767
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095077
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744 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Ksiazka i Wiedza.
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Slomczynski, Kazimierz M. and Tadeusz Krauze ledge and Kegan Paul.
(eds.) Wesolowski, Wlodzimierz, and Kazimierz M.
1978 Class Structure and Social Mobility in Po- Slomczynski
land. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. 1977 Investigations on Class Structure and Social
Telenbach, Sten Stratification in Poland, 1945-1975. War-
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BLACK SOUTHERN STUDENT SIT-IN MOVEMENT: AN ANALYSIS

OF INTERNAL ORGANIZATION*
ALDON MORRIS
University of Michigan
This paper argues that the Southern sit-in movement of 1960, though it appears to
have developed in the spontaneous manner described by classic collective
behavior theory, actually grew out of pre-existing institutions and organizational
forms. The spread of the sit-ins followed the networks of these pre-existing
institutional relationships. Factors internal to the black community-churches,
colleges, protest organizations, and leaders-were responsible for nurturing and
developing the movement. The analysis is based on primary data collected from
archives and interviews with civil rights leaders.
Scholars of the Civil Rights movement 1979) and Civil Rights activists agree that
(Zinn, 1964; Oppenheimer, 1964; Mat- the black Southern student sit-in move-
thews and Prothro, 1966; Meier and Rud- ment of 1960 was a crucial development.
wick, 1973; Oberschall, 1973; McAdam, The sit-ins pumped new life into the Civil
Rights movement and enabled it to win
unprecedented victories. Moreover, the
* Direct all communications to Aldon Morris, sit-ins exercised a profound tactical and
Center for Research on Social Organization, Univer-
strategic influence over the entire course
sity of Michigan, 330 Packard, Ann Arbor, Michigan
48109.
of social and political upheavals of the
I would like to thank Kim Myles, Walter Allen, 1960s.
Michael Schwartz, Charles Perrow, Lewis Coser, Apart from having a jarring impact on
Doug McAdam, Mayer Zald, William Gamson, and race relations, the sit-ins signaled the pos-
Charles Tilly for their helpful comments on this
sibility of militant action at both Northern
paper. The debt that I owe movement participants
who consented to be interviewed will be obvious. A and Southern white campuses (Haber,
special thanks to Sheila Wilder and Debbie Snovak 1966; Obear, 1970; Sale, 1973). A critical
who labored through several drafts of this paper. mass of the early leaders of the white stu-
Finally I thank two anonymous ASR Reviewers for
dent movement acquired much of their
extremely valuable comments. This research was
partially supported by the ASA Minority Fellowship
training, organizing skills, and tactics
Program and a grant from the National Science from the black activists of the student
Foundation SOC 76-20171. sit-in movement (Sale, 1973; Westby,
American Sociological Review 1981, Vol. 46 (December:744-767)
BLACK SOUTHERN STUDENT SIT-IN MOVEMENT 745
1976). Thus, the beginning of the white maintains that social movements differ
student movement as well as the quick- substantially from institutionalized be-
ened pace of Civil Rights activity can be havior. Social movements are theorized to
traced to the black student sit-in move- be relatively spontaneous and un-
ment. structured. Movement participants are
The sit-ins were important because their often portrayed as nonrational actors
rapid spread across the South crystalized functioning outside of normative con-
the conflict of the period and pulled many straints and propelled by high levels of
people directly into the movement. How strain.
is such a "burst" of collective action to be Classical collective behavior theorists
explained? A standard account of the do not deny that organizations and in-
sit-ins has emerged which maintains that stitutional processes play a role in collec-
the sit-ins were the product of an indepen- tive behavior. Rather, organizations and
dent black student movement which rep- institutional processes emerge in the
resented a radical break from previous course of movements and become impor-
civil rights activities, organizations, and tant in their later stages. The standard ac-
leadership of the Black community (e.g. count of the sit-ins fits the collective be-
Lomax, 1962; Zinn, 1964; Oppenheimer, havior imagery. Indeed, it can be argued
1964; Matthews and Prothro, 1966; Meier that the diverse proponents of the "stan-
and Rudwick, 1973; Oberschall, 1973; dard account" have been unduly influ-
Piven and Cloward, 1977). enced by classical collective behavior
In the standard account, various factors theory; their account largely ignores the
are argued to be the driving force behind organizational and institutional frame-
the sit-ins, including impatience of the work out of which the sit-ins emerged and
young, mass media coverage, outside re- spread.
sources made available by the liberal The resource mobilization explanation
white community of the North, and sup- (e.g. Oberschall, 1973; Gamson-, 1975;
port from the Federal Government. Al- Tilly, 1978; McCarthy and Zald, 1973) of
though these writers differ over the social movements differs markedly from
proximate causes of the sit-ins, they classical collective behavior theory. In
nevertheless concur that the sit-ins broke this view, social movements have no dis-
from the organizational and institutional tinct inner logic and are not fundamentally
framework of the emerging Civil Rights different from institutionalized behavior.
movement. The data for the present study Organizations, institutions, pre-existing
do not fit this standard account and sug- communication networks, and rational
gest that a different account and interpre- actors are all seen as important resources
tation of the sit-ins is warranted. The pur- playing crucial roles in the emergence and
pose of this paper is to present new data outcome of collective action. In contrast
on the Southern student sit-in movement to classical collective behavior theory, or-
of 1960, and to provide a framework that ganizational and institutional structures
will theoretically order the empirical are argued to be central throughout the
findings. entire process of collective action.
In its present formulation, resource
mobilization theory is unclear about the
THEORETICAL CONTEXT AND
type of organization and resources that
PROPOSITIONS
are crucial for the initiation and spread of
Classical collective behavior theory and collective action. Some theorists
the recently formulated resource mobili- (Oberschall, 1973; McCarthy and Zald,
zation theory are the major sociological 1973; Jenkins and Perrow, 1977) argue
frameworks that attempt to provide ex- that resources and organizations outside
planations of the origins, development, the protest group are crucial in determin-
and outcomes of social movements. ing the scope and outcomes of collective
Classical collective behavior theory (e.g. action. External groups and resources are
Blumer, 1946; Turner and Killian, 1957; argued to be especially critical for move-
Lang and Lang, 1961; and Smesler, 1963) ments of the poor. In other formulations
of this approach (e.g. Gamson, 1975; Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),

Tilly, 1978), emphasis is placed on the im- Youth Councils of the National Associa-
portant role that internal organization tion for the Advancement of Colored
plays in collective action. However, People (NAACP), Congress of Racial
internal organization is but one of several Equality (CORE), and "direct action"
variables (e.g. repression, bureaucracy, churches existed in numerous Southern
opportunity) that are investigated. In my black communities. A local center within
view such an approach fails to capture the the Civil Rights movement included all
degree to which collective action is de- these organizations and leaders. Second, a
pendent on internal organization. local movement center contains a unit that
This paper focuses on the central func- coordinates protest activities within the
tion that internal organization played in local movement and between the local
the emergence and development of the center and other institutions of the larger
sit-in movement. My analysis suggests community. During the Civil Rights
that one-sided emphases on spontaneous movement, a particular church usually
processes or outside resources can lead to served as the local coordinating unit.
unwarranted neglect of internal structure. Through this unit the protest activities of
A case will be made that the diffusion of the church community, college commu-
the 1960 sit-ins cannot be understood nity, activist organizations, and their
without treating internal organization as a leaders were mobilized and coordinated.
central variable. The analysis will be Thus, movement centers provide the or-
guided by three propositions. ganization and coordination capable of
Proposition 1. Pre-existing social sustaining and spreading collective action.
structures provide the resources and or- Proposition 3. There is an interaction
ganizations that are crucial to the initia- between the type of pre-existing internal
tion and spread of collective action. Fol- organization and the type of innovations
lowing Tilly (1978), collective action is in strategy and tactics that can be rapidly
defined here as joint action by protest adopted and spread by a protest group.
groups in pursuit of common ends. This This proposition addresses the issue of
proposition maintains that collective ac- why a protest group adopts a particular
tion is rooted in organizational structure tactical innovation rather than another.'
and carried out by rational actors at- Whereas Proposition II maintains that
tempting to realize their ends. This propo- diffusion of an innovation in strategy is a
sition is central to resource-mobilization function of the development and spread of
theory and has received considerable sup- internal social organization, Proposition
port from a number of empirical studies III specifies that certain types of organi-
(Oberschall, 1973; Gamson, 1975; Tilly, zation are more conducive than others to
1975). the diffusion and adoption of certain types
Proposition 2. The extent and distribu- of tactical innovation.
tion of internal social organization will In short, the framework for the analysis
determine the extent to which innovations of the 1960 sit-ins consists of three inter-
in collective strategy and tactics are related propositions. One, collective ac-
adopted, spread, and sustained. This tion is initiated through pre-existing
proposition directs attention to a protest
group's internal organization-its "local I Why, for example, did the "teach-ins" spread
movement centers." A local movement rapidly between college campuses during the mid-
center is that component of social sixties? This proposition suggests that the teach-in
tactic was especially suited to the university-based
structure within a local community that
internal organization of the white student movement.
organizes and coordinates collective ac- In its essentials the teach-in innovation was aca-
tion. A local movement center has two demically oriented and could be implemented by aca-
major properties. First, it includes all demic types who were entrenched in the "movement
protest organizations and leaders of a spe- centers" of the various universities involved in the
movement. Lecture halls, libraries, film clips, study
cific community that are actively engaged
groups, seminar notes, etc. were the pre-existing
in organizing and producing collective ac- indigenous resources used by agents of the move-
tion. During the sit-ins, the Southern ment via the teach-ins.
structures. Two, tactical innovation objective was to examine the roles played
within a movement is a function of well- in the sit-ins by variables associated with
developed and widespread internal orga- Weberian theory and theories of collec-
nization. Three, the type of innovation in tive behavior and resource mobilization.
strategy and tactics which can be rapidly Following collective behavior theory, I
disseminated and sustained is largely de- was concerned with the extent to which
termined by the characteristic internal or- the sit-ins were spontaneous and discon-
ganization of a protest group. tinuous with established social structure.
From Weberian theory I was interested in
DATA whether a charismatic attraction between
a leader and followers was sufficient to
This study of the sit-ins is part of a larger produce the heavy volume of collective
study on the origins of the Civil Rights action in the 1960 sit-ins. Finally, several
movement (Morris, forthcoming). A sub- issues addressed by resource mobilization
stantial part of the data were collected theory were of interest. I examined archi-
from primary sources-archives and val sources to ascertain the role of social
interviews with Civil Rights participants. organization and resources in the sit-ins.
The archival research was conducted at Also, I was concerned with whether the
various sites between May and September leadership, money, and skills behind the
of 1978.2 Thousands of original documents sit-ins were supplied by outsiders or by
(i.e. memoranda, letters, field reports, or- the indigenous Southern black commu-
ganizational histories and directives, nity.
interorganizational correspondences, etc.) Three strategies were employed in the
generated by movement participants were interview process. First, the researcher
examined. These data contained a wealth attempted to learn as much as possible
of information pertaining to key about the movement from extensive li-
variables-organization, mobilization, fi- brary and archival sources before con-
nance, rationality, spontaneity-relevant ducting interviews. This prior knowledge
to the study of movements. enabled the interviewer to ask specific
Interviews with participants of the questions and to assist interviewees in
movement constituted the second source rooting their memories in the social, tem-
of data. Detailed interviews with over 50 poral, and geographical context of their
Civil Rights leaders were conducted. actions twenty years earlier. Prior knowl-
Interviews made it possible to follow-up edge enabled the interviewer to gain the
on many issues raised by the archival respect of interviewees and increased the
data; and, since these interviews were likelihood that they would approach the
semi-open-ended, they revealed unex- interview in a serious manner.
pected insights into the movement. Second, the interviews were semi-
Whenever statements were heard that structured, usually lasting two or three
seemed novel or promising, interviewees hours. An extended list of questions
were given freedom to speak their piece. structured around the variables used in
the archival research were formulated
METHODS beforehand. The interviewees were in-
The strategy for the archival research was structed to feel free to deviate from the
straightforward. The researcher examined questions and to discuss what they
every document possible within the time thought to be important. Their "diver-
allocated for a particular site.3 The main sions" produced new information.
Third, the interview sample was assem-
2 King papers at Boston University; SCLC papers bled in two ways. While examining the
at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference archival material, the names of leaders as-
headquartered in Atlanta; Rev. Kelly Miller Smith's sociated with various activities turned up
papers housed at First Baptist Church of Nashville. constantly. These were the initial individ-
I All of the King papers at Boston University and
uals contacted for interviews. Once the
all of SCLC's files in Atlanta were examined, as well
as the portion of Rev. Smith's papers dealing with the interview process was underway, inter-
sit-ins. viewees would invariably remark, often in
response to queries, "you know, you though this paper concentrates on the
really should speak to [so-and-so] regard- uniqueness of the Greensboro link, there
ing that matter." Subsequent interviews were important similarities in the entire
were arranged with many of these individ- chain. While other studies (Southern Re-
uals. Thus, the snowball effect was central gional Council, 1960; Oppenheimer, 1964;
to the sampling process. Although the ac- Matthews and Prothro, 1966; Meier and
tivists interviewed came from numerous Rudwick, 1973) have not totally over-
organizations and represented different, if looked these earlier sit-ins, they fail to
not conflicting, viewpoints, to our sur- reveal their scope, connections, and ex-
prise they agreed on many basic issues. tensive organizational base.
Given that the sit-in movement oc- The early sit-ins were initiated by
curred twenty years ago, it is reasonable direct-action organizations. From inter-
to wonder whether interview accounts are views with participants in the early sit-ins
reliable and valid. Moreover, there is the (Moore, 1978; McCain, 1978; Lawson,
suspicion that participants might have 1978; Smith, 1978; McKissick, 1978, 1979;
vested interests in presenting the "facts" Luper, 1981; Randolph, 1981; Lewis,
in such a way as to enhance their own 1981) and published works (Southern Re-
status. Such problems of recall and vested gional Council, 1960; Meier and Rudwick,
interest have been minimized in this re- 1973), I found that Civil Rights organi-
search because the analysis is not based zations initiated sit-ins in fourteen of the
on any one source. Rather, it is built on an fifteen cities I have identified. The
array of published material, archival NAACP, primarily its Youth Councils,
sources, and accounts of individuals who either initiated or co-initiated sit-ins in
participated in and were eye-witnesses to nine of the fifteen cities. CORE, usually
the same events. Furthermore, cross ref- working with the NAACP, played an im-
erences were made throughout the data portant initiating role in seven of the fif-
collection process. Follow-up phone calls teen cities. The SCLC initiated one case
were made to clarify ambiguity and to and was involved in another. Finally, the
obtain a comprehensive view of the sit-in Durham Committee on Negro Affairs,
movement. It appears that neither of these working with the NAACP, initiated sit-ins
potential trouble spots produced funda- in that city. From this data, we can con-
mental defects in the data. clude that these early sit-ins were a result
of a multi-faceted organizational effort.
These sit-ins received substantial
EARLY SIT-INS: FORERUNNERS
backing from their respective com-
The first myth regarding the sit-in move- munities. The black church served as the
ment is that it started in Greensboro, major institutional force behind the sit-ins.
North Carolina, on February 1, 1960. This Over two decades ago, E. Franklin
research documents that Civil Rights ac- Frazier argued that "for the Negro
tivists conducted sit-ins between 1957 and masses, in their social and moral isolation
1960 in at least fifteen cities: St. Louis, in American society, the Negro church
Missouri; Wichita and Kansas City, Kan- community has been a nation within a na-
sas; Oklahoma City, Enid, Tulsa, and tion" (Frazier, 1963:49). He argued that
Stillwater, Oklahoma; Lexington and the church functioned as the central
Louisville, Kentucky; Miami, Florida; political arena in black society. Nearly all
Charleston, West Virginia; Sumter, South of the direct-action organizations that ini-
Carolina; East St. Louis, Illinois; tiated these early sit-ins were closely as-
Nashville, Tennessee; and Durham, sociated with the church. The church
North Carolina.4 The Greensboro sit-ins supplied these organizations not only with
are important because they represent a an established communication network,
unique link in a long chain of sit-ins. Al- but also leaders and organized masses, fi-
nances, and a safe environment in which
to hold political meetings. Direct-action
4 I suspect that further research will reveal that
sit-ins occurred in more than these fifteen cities be- organizations clung to the church because
tween 1957 and 1960. their survival depended on it.
Not all black churches supported the dents held "test" sit-ins in two department
sit-ins. The many that did often supported stores. Earlier, in 1957, members of the
sit-ins in a critical but "invisible" manner. Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council
Thus, Mrs. Clara Luper, the organizer of created what they called their "project,"
the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-ins, wrote that whose aim was to eliminate segregation in
the black church did not want to get in- public accommodations (Luper, 1979:3).
volved, but church leaders told organiz- The project consisted of various commit-
ers, "we could meet in their churches. tees and groups who planned sit-in strate-
They would take up a collection for us and gies. After a year of planning, this group
make announcements concerning our walked into the local Katz Drug Store and
worthwhile activities" (Luper, 1979:3). initiated their sit-in. In St. Louis in 1955,
This "covert" role was central. Inter- William Clay organized an NAACP Youth
viewed activists revealed that clusters of Council. Through careful planning and
churches were usually directly involved twelve months of demonstrations, mem-
with the sit-ins. In addition to community bers of this organization were able to de-
support generated through the churches, segregate dining facilities at department
these activists also received support from stores (Meier and Rudwick, 1973:93). In
parents whose children were participating Durham, North Carolina in 1958, black
in demonstrations. activists of the Durham Committee on
These sit-ins were organized by estab- Negro Affairs conducted a survey of 5-
lished leaders of the black community. and-10-cent stores in Durham (Southern
The leaders did not spontaneously emerge Regional Council, 1960). The survey re-
in response to a crisis, but were organi- vealed that these stores were heavily de-
zational actors in the full sense of the pendent on black trade. Clearly, the sit-ins
word. Some sit-in leaders were also initiated by this group were based on ra-
church leaders, taught school, and headed tional planning. A similar picture emerges
up the local direct-action organization; in Sumter, South Carolina and for all the
their extensive organizational linkages early sit-ins.
provided blocks of individuals to serve as Finally, these early sit-ins were spon-
demonstrators. Clara Luper wrote, "The sored by indigenous resources of the black
fact that I was teaching American History community; the leadership was black, the
at Dungee High School in Spencer, Okla- bulk of the demonstrators were black, the
homa and was a member of the First strategies and tactics were formulated by
Street Baptist Church furnished me with blacks, and the finances came out of the
an ample number of young people who pockets of blacks, while their serene spir-
would become the nucleus of the Youth ituals echoed through the churches.6
Council" (Luper, 1979:1). Mrs. Luper's Most of the organizers of the early sit-
case is not isolated; leaders of the early ins knew each other and were well aware
sit-ins were enmeshed in organizational
networks and were integral members of
the black community. use actual names because my study focuses on real
Rational planning was evident in this places, movements, and activists. This approach will
early wave of sit-ins. During the late fif- assist other researchers in evaluating the interview
data, since they will know who said what and can
ties, the Revs. James Lawson and Kelly
conduct further interviews if the need arises. In ad-
Miller Smith, both leaders of a direct- dition, the respondents had a story to convey and
action organization-Nashville Christian expressed no desires to remain anonymous.
Leadership Council-formed what they 6 It could legitimately be argued that outside re-
sources were central to these early sit-ins, given that
called a "nonviolent workshop." In these
in some cases CORE was involved. However, it
workshops, Lawson meticulously taught seems that the emerging black, direct-action organi-
local college students the philosophy and zations of the late 1950s and the church served as a
tactics of nonviolent protest (D. Bevel, resource base for CORE. Thus, CORE, which was
1978; Lewis, 1978).5 In 1959, these stu- very small at the time, "piggybacked" on indigenous
resources of the black community. Elsewhere (1980)
I have presented supporting data for this argument.
5 Actual names of movement participants are used
Meier and Rudwick's account of early CORE sug-
in this study rather than pseudonyms. I decided gests
to a similar conclusion.
of each other's strategies of confrontation. Ronald Walters, initiated sit-ins at the
Many of these activists were part of the lunch counters of a local drug store
militant wing of the NAACP. Following (Lewis, 1981). At the same time, Clara
the Montgomery bus boycott, this group Luper and the young people in her
began to reorganize NAACP Youth NAACP Youth Council were training to
Councils with the explicit purpose of ini- conduct sit-ins in Oklahoma City. The
tiating direct-action projects. This group adult leaders of these two groups knew
of activists (e.g., Floyd McKissick, Daisy each other: in addition to working for the
Bates, Ronald Walters, Hosea Williams, same organization, several members of
Barbara Posey, Clara Luper, etc.) viewed the two groups were personal friends.
themselves as a distinct group, because Following the initial sit-ins in Wichita,
the national NAACP usually did not ap- members of the two groups made numer-
prove of their direct-action approach or ous phone calls, exchanged information,
took a very ambivalent stance. and discussed mutual support. This direct
These militants of the NAACP built contact was important because the local
networks that detoured the conservative press refused to cover the sit-ins. In less
channels and organizational positions of than a week, Clara Luper's group in Okla-
their superiors. At NAACP meetings and homa City initiated their planned sit-ins.
conferences, they selected situations Shortly thereafter, sit-ins were con-
where they could present freely their ducted in Tulsa, Enid, and Stillwater,
plans and desires to engage in confronta- Oklahoma. Working through CORE and
tional politics. At these gatherings, infor- the local NAACP Youth Council, Clara
mation regarding strategies was ex- Luper's personal friend, Mrs. Shirley
changed. Once acquainted, the activists Scaggins, organized the sit-ins in Tulsa
remained in touch by phone and mail. (Luper, 1981). Mrs. Scaggins had recently
Thus, it is no accident that the early lived in Oklahoma City and knew the de-
sit-ins occurred between 1957 and 1960. tails of Mrs. Luper's sit-in project. The
Other instances of'direct action' also oc- two leaders worked in concert. At the
curred during this period. For example, same time, the NAACP Youth Council in
Mrs. Daisy Bates led black students affili- Enid began to conduct sit-ins. A Mr.
ated with her NAACP Youth Council into Mitchell who led that group (Luper, 1981)
the all-white Little Rock Central High knew Mrs. Luper well. He had visited the
School and forced President Eisenhower Oklahoma Youth Council at the outset of
to send in National Guards. CORE, be- their sit-in and discussed with them sit-in
ginning to gain a foothold in the South, tactics and mutual support. The Stillwater
had the explicit goal of initiating direct- sit-ins appear to have been conducted in-
action projects. We have already noted dependently by black college students.
that CORE activists were in close contact A process similar to that in Oklahoma
with other activists of the period. Though occurred in East St. Louis, Illinois.
these early sit-ins and related activities Homer Randolph, who in late 1958 orga-
were not part of a grandiose scheme, their nized the East St. Louis sit-ins, had previ-
joint occurrences, timing, and approaches ously lived in Oklahoma City, knew Mrs.
were connected via organizational and Luper well, and had young relatives who
personal networks. participated in the Oklahoma City sit-ins.
In short, the first sit-in cluster occurred
in Oklahoma in 1958 and spread to cities
SIT-IN CLUSTER
within a hundred-mile radius via estab-
Organizational and personal networks lished organizational and personal net-
produced the first cluster of sit-ins in works. The majority of these early sit-ins
Oklahoma in 1958. By tracing these net- were (1) connected rather than isolated,
works, we can arrive at a basic under- (2) initiated through organizations and
standing of this cluster and a clue to personal ties, (3) rationally planned and
understanding the entire sit-in movement. led by established leaders, and (4) sup-
In August of 1958, the NAACP Youth ported by indigenous resources. Thus, the
Council of Wichita, Kansas, headed by Greensboro sit-ins did not mark the
movement's beginning, but were links in by issuing injunctions which prevented

the chain. But the Greensboro sit-ins were NAACP from operating in a number of
a unique link which triggered sit-ins across Southern states. For example the NAACP
the South at an incredible pace. What was outlawed in the state of Alabama
happened in the black community be- from 1956 to 1965 (Morris, 1980). This re-
tween the late 1950s and early 1960s to pression forced the NAACP to become
produce such a movement? defensively-oriented and to commit its re-
sources to court battles designed to save
itself. Thus, neither CORE nor NAACP
EMERGENCE OF INTERNAL
Youth Councils were able to provide the
ORGANIZATION
political base required to launch the mas-
During the mid-fifties the extensive inter- sive sit-ins of 1960.
nal organization of the Civil Rights Nevertheless, between 1955 and 1960
movement began to crystalize in com- new organizational and protest efforts
munities across the South. During this pe- were stirring in Southern black com-
riod '"direct action" organizations were munities. The efforts attracted CORE
being built by local activists. Community southward and inspired the direct-action
institutions-especially the black groups in the NAACP to reorganize its
church-were becoming political. The Youth Councils. The Montgomery bus
"mass meeting" with political oratory and boycott was the watershed. The im-
protest music became institutionalized. portance of that boycott was that it re-
During the same period, CORE entered vealed to the black community that mass
the South with intentions of initiating protests could be successfully organized
protest, and NAACP Youth Councils and initiated through indigenous resources
were reorganized by young militant adults and institutions.
who desired to engage in confrontational The Montgomery bus boycott gave
politics. rise to both the Montgomery Improve-
However, neither CORE nor the ment Association (MIA) and the Southern
NAACP Youth Councils were capable of Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
mobilizing wide-scale protest such as the The MIA was organized in December 1955
sit-ins of 1960, because neither had to coordinate the activities of the mass bus
a mass base in the black community. boycott against segregated buses and to
CORE was small, Northern-based, and serve as the boycott's official decision-
white-led, largely unknown to Southern making body. The MIA was a local
blacks. Historically, the NAACP had church-based Southern organization. Its
been unable to persuade more than 2% of leadership was dominated by local minis-
the black population to become members. ters of Montgomery, with the Rev. Martin
Furthermore, the national NAACP was Luther King serving as its first president.
oriented to legal strategies, not sit-ins. The dramatic Montgomery boycott
Following the 1954 school desegregation triggered similar boycotts in a number of
decision, the NAACP was further Southern cities. As in Montgomery, these
weakened by a severe attack by local boycotts were organized through the
white power structures. Members of the churches, with a local minister typically
Southern white power structures at- becoming the official leader. SCLC was
tempted to drive local branches of organized in 1957 by activist clergymen
NAACP out of existence by labeling them from across the South to coordinate and
subversive and demanding they make consolidate the various local movements.
their membership public. NAACP offi- SCLC's leadership was dominated by
cials usually refused to comply with this black ministers with King elected as its
demand because their members might first president, and the major organi-
suffer physical and economic reprisals if zational posts were filled by ministers who
identified. NAACP s opponents argued in led local movements. Thus, SCLC was
the local courts that this noncompliance organized to accomplish across the South
confirmed their suspicion that NAACP what the MIA had in Montgomery. The
was subversive, and the courts responded emergence of MIA and SCLC reflected
the dominant role that churches began to movement is seldom grasped. As a non-
play in confrontational politics by the late bureaucratic, church-based organization,
1950s. MIA's organizational affairs were con-
The Montgomery bus boycott demon- ducted like church services rather than by
strated the political potential of the black rigid bureaucratic rules, as in the case of
church and church-related direct-action the NAACP. Ministers presided over the
organizations. By 1955 the massive mi- MIA the way they presided over their
gration of blacks from rural to urban areas congregations. Ultimate authority inhered
was well underway, and many Southern in the president, Dr. King. Decisions per-
cities had substantial black populations. taining to local matters could be reached
The black urban churches that emerged in immediately. Diverse organizational tasks
these cities were quite different from their were delegated to the rank-and-file on the
rural counterparts. The urban churches spot. Rules and procedures emerged by
were larger, more numerous, and better trial and error and could be altered when
financed, and were presided over by they inhibited direct action. Oratory,
ministers who were better educated and music, and charismatic personalities ener-
whose sole occupation was the ministry gized MIA's organizational affairs. The
(Mays and Nicholson, 1933; McAdam, structure of the organization was designed
1979; Morris, 1980). Moreover, urban to allow masses to participate directly in
churches were owned, operated, and protest activities. The MIA proved to be
controlled by the black community. appropriate for confrontational politics
These churches functioned as the in- because it was mass-based, nonbureau-
stitutional base of the Montgomery bus cratic, Southern-led, and able to transform
boycott. They supplied the movement pre-existing church resources into politi-
with money, organized masses, leaders, cal power.
highly developed communications, and Southern blacks took notice of the
relatively safe environments where mass Montgomery movement. Activists from
meetings could be held to plan confronta- across the South visited Montgomery to
tions. This institutional base was in place observe the political roles of the church
prior to the boycott. Movement leaders and the MIA. For example, when Hosea
transformed the churches into political re- Williams (at the time, an activist associ-
sources and committed them to the ends ated with the NAACP in Savannah, Geor-
of the movement. The new duty of the gia) visited the Montgomery movement,
church finance committee was to collect he marvelled at its dynamics:
money for the movement. The minister's You had had NAACP lawsuits, you'd had
new role was to use the pulpit to articulate NAACP chapters, who had much less than
the political responsibilities of the church 5% participation anyplace. But here's a place
community. The new role of the choir was [Montgomery] where they got masses of
to weave political messages into the blacks-they couldn't get a church big
serene spirituals. Regular church meetings enough where they could hold mass rallies.
were transformed into the "mass meeting" And then, none of them [masses] were riding
where blacks joined committees to guide the buses. I was interested in these strategies
and their implementation and in learning
protests, offered up collections to the
how to mobilize the masses to move in con-
movement, and acquired reliable infor-
cert. [Williams, 1978]
mation of the movement, which local
radio and television stations refused to Williams, like countless others, did more
broadcast. The resources necessary to than marvel. In his words, "I went back to
initiate a black movement were present in Savannah and organized the Youth Coun-
Montgomery and other communities. cil and nonviolent movement." Thus, an-
They were transformed into political re- other direct-action organization emerged.
sources and used to launch the first highly Black ministers were in the best posi-
visible mass protest of the modern Civil tion to organize church-related direct-
Rights movement. action organizations in the South. Even
The important role of the MIA in the while the Montgomery movement was in
emergence of the modern Civil Rights progress, ministers in other cities (e.g.,
Steele in Tallahassee, Shuttlesworth in After the meeting [SCLC organizing

Birmingham, and Davis in New Orleans) meeting] and after the discussion that we ha
began to build mass-based movements and all that, it became clear to me that we
patterned after the Montgomery move- needed something in addition to NAACP. So
I came back and I called some people to-
ment. These ministers were not only in a
gether and formed what we named the
position to organize and commit church
Nashville Christian Leadership Council in
resources to protest efforts, they were
order to address the same kind of issues that
also linked to each other and the larger SCLC would be addressing. [Smith, 1978]
community via ministerial alliances. In
Hundreds of ministers across the South
short, between 1955 and 1960 a profound
took similar action.
change in Southern black communities
had begun. Confrontational politics were
From this collective effort resulted what
thrust to the foreground through new
can best be conceptualized as local
direct-action organizations closely allied movement centers of the Civil Rights
with the church. movement, which usually had the follow-
ing seven characteristics:
1. A cadre of social-change-oriented minis-
SCLC AND MOVEMENT CENTERS
ters and their congregations. Often one
The creation of the Southern Christian minister would become the local leader of
Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 a given center and his church would serve
as the coordinating unit.
marked a critical organizational shift for
2. Direct action organizations of varied
the Civil Rights movement. The ministers
complexity. In many cities local churches
who organized SCLC clearly understood served as quasi-direct-action organi-
the historic and central institutional im- zations, while in others ministers built
portance of the church in black society. complex, church-related organizations
They knew that the church nurtured and (e.g., United Defense League of Baton
produced most of the indigenous leaders, Rouge, Montgomery Improvement Asso-
raised finances, and organized masses, as ciation, Alabama Christian Movement for
well as being a major force in other as- Human Rights of Birmingham,
Petersburg Improvement Association).
pects of black culture. By 1957 these
NAACP Youth Councils and CORE af-
ministers, many of whom were leading
filiates also were components of the local
movements in their local communities,
centers.
consciously and explicitly concluded that 3. Indigenous financing coordinated through
the church was capable of functioning as the church.
the institutional vanguard of a mass-based 4. Weekly mass meetings, which served as
black movement. Hence, they organized forums and where local residents were
SCLC to be a Southern-wide, church- informed of relevant information and
based protest organization. strategies regarding the movement. These
Prior to SCLC, the major black protest meetings also built solidarity among the
participants.
organization-NAACP-had been closely
5. Dissemination of nonviolent tactics and
linked with the church. Yet, before SCLC
strategies. The leaders articulated to the
was created, the NAACP, and not the black community the message that social
church, functioned as the organization change would occur only through non-
through which protest was initiated. With violent direct action carried out by
the emergence of SCLC, the critical shift masses.
occurred whereby the church itself, rather 6. Adaptation of a rich church culture to
than groups closely linked to it, began to political purposes. The black spirituals,
function as the institutional center of pro- sermons, and prayers were used to
test. deepen the participants' commitment
to the struggle.
In 1957 the organizers of SCLC sent out
7. A mass-based orientation, rooted in the
a call to fellow clergymen of the South to black community, through the church.
organize their congregations and com-
munities for collective protest. The re- See Figure 1 for a schematic diagram of a
marks of Rev. Smith of Nashville typified typical local movement center.
the action of protest-oriented ministers: Most scholars of the movement are si-
In Durham, North Carolina, churches

that made up the movement center were
Union Baptist, pastored by Rev. Grady
Local Movement Centers Davis; Ashbury Temple, pastored by Rev.
(Protest organization
and Leaders)
Douglas Moore; Mount Zion, pastored by
Rev. Fuller; St. Marks, pastored by Rev.
//- - '\ Speaks; and St. Josephs, pastored by Rev.
Swann. Movement centers were also to be
I Coordinating I found in cities of the deep South such as
Unit I
(Church) / Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama;
Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Tallahassee,
Florida.
So prevalent were these centers
throughout the South that when Gordon
Carey, a CORE field investigator, sur-
veyed the situation in 1959, he reported:
College Network Church Network
In some Southern cities such as Montgom-
ery, Orangeburg, Tallahassee, and Birming-
ham nonviolent movements have been and
are being carried on. But most of the South,
Figure 1. Structure of a Typical Local Movement with its near total segregation, has not been
Center touched. Many places havefelt the spirit of
Martin Luther King, Jr. but too often this
spirit has not been turned into positive ac-
lent about the period between the
tion. [Carey, 1959, emphasis added]
Montgomery bus boycott and the 1960
sit-ins. My analysis emphasizes that the The "spirit" to which Carey referred was
organizational foundation of the Civil in fact the church-based movement cen-
Rights movement was built during this pe- ters he found throughout the South, most
riod and active local movement centers of which were affiliated with or patterned
were created in numerous Southern black after SCLC.
communities. For instance, between 1957 Elsewhere (Morris, 1980), I have ana-
and 1960 many local centers emerged in lyzed how, in the late 1950s, these centers
Virginia. Ministers such as Reverends were perfecting confrontation strategies,
Milton Reid, L. C. Johnson, Virgil Wood, building organizations, leading marches,
Curtis Harris, and Wyatt Walker operated organizing voter drives, and radicalizing
out of centers in Hopewell, Lynchburg, members of the community. Scholars
Portsmouth, and Petersburg. The direct (e.g., Oberschall, 1973:223) persistently
action organizations of these cities were dismiss these centers as weak, limited,
named Improvement Associations and and unwilling to confront the white power
were patterned after the original MIA. structure. Yet the evidence suggests a
South Carolina also had its movement different interpretation. For example,
centers. For example, in 1955-1956, after Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and his mass-
whites began exerting economic pressure based movement center continually con-
against blacks desiring school integration, fronted Bull Connor and the white power
the black community of Orangeburg initi- structure of Birmingham throughout the
ated an economic boycott against late fifties. As a consequence, Shuttles-
twenty-three local firms. This extended worth's home and church were repeatedly
boycott resulted in a vibrant movement bombed.
center led by the Reverends Matthew In short, between 1955 and 1960 many
McCollom, William Sample, and Alfred local movement centers were formed and
Issac and their congregations. Movement hardened. These centers, which included
centers emerged in other South Carolina NAACP Youth Councils and CORE
cities, such as Sumter, Columbia, and chapters, constituted the new political
Florence, organized by James McCain of reality of Southern black communities on
CORE and activist clergymen. the eve of the 1960 sit-ins. It was these
structures that were able to generate and members of an NAACP Youth Council."
sustain a heavy volume of collective ac- Indeed, the four students had participated
tion. in numerous meetings in social-action
oriented churches in Durham. Involve-
ment with the NAACP Youth Council
THE GREENSBORO CONNECTION
meant that they were not only informed
On February 1, 1960 Ezell Blair Jr., about the Durham sit-ins, but also knew
Franklin McCain, Joe McNeil, and David about many of the sit-ins conducted prior
Richmond, all students at North Carolina to 1960. Thus, the myth that four college
Agricultural and Technical College, sat-in students got up one day and sat-in at
at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Woolworth's-and sparked the
Greensboro, North Carolina. Though movement-dries up like a "raisin in the
most commentators mark this as the first sun" when confronted with the evidence.
sit-in, the four protesters knew that they The National office of the NAACP and
were not the first to sit-in in the state of many conservative ministers refused to
North Carolina. Sit-in activity in the state back the Greensboro sit-ins. The
had begun in the late fifties, when a young NAACP's renowned team of lawyers did
black attorney, Floyd McKissick, and a not defend the "Greensboro Four."
young Board member of SCLC, Rev. Nevertheless, on the same day they sat-in,
Douglas Moore, and a small group of the students contacted a lawyer whom
other young people (including a few they considered to be their friend, and
whites from Duke University) began con- Floyd McKissick became the lawyer for
ducting sit-ins in Durham. the "Greensboro Four." The network of
These early Durham sit-ins were part of college students and adult activists had
the network of sit-ins which occured be- begun to operate in earnest.
tween 1957 and 1960. The activists in- Well-forged networks existed between
volved in the early sit-ins belonged to the and among black churches and colleges in
NAACP Youth Division, which McKis- North Carolina, facilitated by the large
sick headed, and their own direct-action number of colleges concentrated in the
organization called the Durham Commit- state. Indeed, ten black colleges existed
tee on Negro Affairs. During the late fif- within a ten-mile radius of Greensboro
ties, McKissick and Moore's group con- (Wolff, 1970:590). Interactions between
ducted sit-ins at local bus stations, waiting colleges and churches were both frequent
rooms, parks, hotels, and other places and intense; many colleges were originally
(McKissick, 1978). In 1957, Rev. Moore founded by the churches. A number of
and others were arrested for sitting-in at a North Carolina churches were referred to
local ice-cream parlor. The subsequent as "college churches" because they had
legal case became known as the "Royal large student memberships. These two
Ice Cream Case." McKissick, who also sets of social organizations were also
headed the local Boy Scout organization, linked through college seminaries where
periodically would take the young "all- black ministers received their theological
American" scouts into segregated restau- training.
rants and order food. In short, this These church-student networks enabled
Durham group persistently confronted the activist-oriented students to become
white power structure in the late fifties. familiar with the emerging Civil Rights
The four students who sat-in at movement via local movement centers
Greensboro and sparked the widespread and made it possible for adult activists to
sit-in movement had been members of the tap the organizational resources of the
NAACP Youth Council, headed by colleges. Leaders of student governments
McKissick. According to McKissick, he and other campus groups facilitated stu-
knew them all well and they knew all dent mobilization because they, like the
about the Durham activities. Martin Op- ministers, had organizing skills and access
penheimer (1964:398), an early historian to blocs of people. Moreover, the con-
of the sit-ins, confirms this: "All of the centration of colleges in the state provided
boys were, or at some time had been an extensive network of contacts. Frater-
nity and sorority chapters linked students Table 1. Number of Cities with Sit-ins and Related
within and between campuses, as did Protest Activities, February-March 1%0,
by State
dating patterns and joint cultural and ath-
letic events. Finally, intercollegiate kin- State Number
ship and friendship networks were wide- North Carolina 18
spread, and student leaders were squarely Florida 11
tied to these networks. Similiarly, black Virginia 9
South Carolina 7
communities across North Carolina could
Texas 5
be rapidly mobilized through the Tennessee 4
churches, since churches were linked Alabama 4
through ministerial alliances and other Georgia 2
networks. By 1960 these diverse and in- West Virginia 2
Louisiana 2
terlocking networks were capable of being
Arkansas 2
politicized and coordinated through exist- Maryland I
ing movement centers, making North Ohio I
Carolina an ideal state for the rapid diffu- Kentucky 1
sion of collective action. Total 69
Within a week of the Greensboro pro- Compiled from: Southern Regional Council. "The
test, sit-ins rapidly spread across the student protest movement, winter 1960." SRC-13,
South. In an extensive study, the South- April 1 1960 (revised)
ern Regional Council (1960) reported that
between February 1 and March 31 of 1960, requested by the local NAACP president.
major sit-in demonstrations and related Carey arrived in Durham from New York
activity had been conducted in at least on February the 7th and went directly to
sixty-nine Southern cities (see Table 1).7 McKissick's home, where the sit-ins were
being planned. Carey was a good choice
BEYOND GREENSBORO because he had knowledge of nonviolent
resistance and because of his earlier con-
As soon as the sit-ins started in tact with movement centers in Southern
Greensboro, the network of movement black communities.
centers was activated. In the first week of On February 8th-exactly one week
February, 1960, students continued to after the Greensboro sit-ins-the demon-
sit-in daily at the local Woolworth's, and strations spread to nearby Durham and
the protest population began to grow. The Winston-Salem. McKissick, Moore,
original four protesters were joined by Carey, and others helped organize these
hundreds of students from A & T College sit-ins, bringing students from the local
and several other local black colleges. colleges to churches where they were
Black high-school students and a few trained to conduct sit-ins. For example,
white college students also joined the the Durham students were trained at the
protest. Influential local whites decided to same churches through which McKissick
close the Woolworth's in Greensboro, and Moore had planned direct action in
hoping to take the steam out of the devel- the late 1950s. Following training and
oping mass-movement. It was too late. strategy sessions, the students went to the
Floyd McKissick, Rev. Douglas Moore, local lunch counters and sat-in.
and others who had conducted previous The organizing effort was not limited to
sit-ins formulated plans to spread the these two nearby cities. Within the first
movement across the state. They were week of the Greensboro sit-in, McKissick,
joined by CORE's white field secretary, Carey, and Rev. Moore made contact with
Gordon Carey, whose services had been activists in movement centers throughout
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Vir-
ginia, urging them to train students for
7 To appreciate the volume of protest activity en- sit-ins. They not only phoned these ac-
gendered by the sit-ins, it is necessary to note that
the total number of cities (69) is not a count of actual
tivists, but traveled to various cities to
day-to-day demonstrations, which during these first provide assistance. Upon arrival they
two months ran into the hundreds if not thousands. often found sit-in planning sessions al-
ready underway. According to Carey Point, North Carolina, and Rev. C. A.

(1978), "when we reached these cities we Ivory of Rock Hill, South Carolina,
went directly to the movement oriented phoned McKissick and other leaders, in-
churches." When asked why, Carey re- forming them that their groups were
plied, "Well, that's where the protest ac- "ready to go" (McKissick, 1978). Cox's
tivities were being planned and orga- group sat-in on February 11th and Ivory's
nized." Thus, these sit-ins were largely on February 12th. Rev. Ivory organized
organized at the movement churches and directed the Rock Hill sit-ins from his
rather than on the campuses. To under- wheelchair. Within the week, sit-ins were
stand the sit-in movement, one must being conducted in several cities in Vir-
abandon the assumption that it was a col- ginia, most of them organized through the
legiate phenomenon. For different rea- dense network of SCLC movement cen-
sons, Rev. Moore attempted to convey ters in that state (Southern Regional
this same idea in the early days of the Council, 1960; Walker, 1978).
sit-ins: "If Woolworth and other stores The movement hot lines reached far be-
think this is just another panty raid, they yond the border states of North Carolina,
haven't had their sociologists in the field South Carolina, and Virginia. Rev. Fred
recently" (Moore, 1960). The sit-ins grew Shuttlesworth, an active leader of the
out of a context of organized movement Birmingham, Alabama, movement center,
centers. happened to be in North Carolina when
As anticipated above, the Southern the first wave of sit-ins occurred, fulfilling
Christian Leadership Conference was a speaking engagement for the leader of
central to the rise of the 1960 sit-in move- the High Point sit-ins-Rev. Cox. Ac-
ment. It is critical to remember that when cording to Shuttlesworth, "He [Rev. Cox]
Rev. Moore and other organizers visited carried me by where these people were
churches in North and South Carolina and going to sit-in . .. I called back to Atlanta,
Virginia, they discovered that church and told Ella [Baker] what was going on. I
leaders were already training students for said, 'this is the thing. You must tell Mar-
sit-ins. Speaking of the ministers who tin [King] that we must get with this, and
headed these movement churches, Carey really this can shake up the world'"
(1978) reported, "All of these ministers (Shuttlesworth, 1978). Baker, the Execu-
were active in the Southern Christian tive Director of SCLC, immediately began
Leadership Conference. At least 75% calling her contacts at various colleges,
were getting inspiration from King." Ad- asking them, "What are you all going to
ditionally, these ministers had contacts do? It is time to move" (Baker, 1978).
with and often were leaders of both CORE Carey and Rev. Moore phoned the
and the activist wing of the NAACP. movement center in Nashville, Tennes-
Since the movement centers were al- see, and asked Rev. Lawson if they were
ready in place, they served as both re- ready to move. The student and church
ceiving and transmitting "antennas" for communities coordinated by the Nashville
the sit-ins. As receivers they gathered in- Christian Leadership Conference an-
formation of the sit-ins, and as swered in the affirmative. According to
transmitters they rebroadcast information Lawson,
throughout the networks. Because this Of course there was organizing because after
internal network already existed, infor- the sit-in, the first one in February, people
mation was rapidly channeled to groups like Doug Moore, Ella Baker, myself, did
prepared to engage in nonviolent collec- call around to places that we knew, said,
tive action. 'Can you start? Are you ready? Can you go?
And how can we help you?' So there was
During the second week of February
some of that too that went on. Even there the
1960, plans were formulated to conduct
sit-in movement did not just spread spon-
sit-ins in a number of Southern cities. taneously. I mean there was a readiness.
Communication and coordination be- And then there were, there were phone calls
tween the cities was intensified. For that went out to various communities where
example, early in the second week of Feb- we knew people and where we knew student
ruary, the Rev. B. Elton Cox of High groups and where we knew minister groups,
and said, you know, 'this

during March is dropped
the percentage it, let's
to
[Lawson, 1978] 44%.
When asked, "Why did the student sit-in The clustering differentials between the
movement occur?" Lawson replied, two months can be explained by taking
region into account as shown in Table 3.
Because King and the Montgomery boycott
In the first month (February) 85% of the
and the whole development of that lead-
cities having sit-ins were located in South-
ership that clustered around King had
emerged and was ready and was preaching eastern and border st tes. This pattern
and teaching direct action, nonviolent ac- had been established ea lier, when most of
tion, and was clearly ready to act, ready to the pre-1960 sit-ins occurred in border
seed any movement that needed sustenance states. Most of the February sit-ins took
and growth. So there was ... in other place in cities of border states because
words, the soil had been prepared. [Law- repression against blacks was not as se-
son, 1978] vere there as in the deep South. This made
These data provide insight into how a it possible for activists in border states to
political movement can rapidly spread build dense networks of movement cen-
between geographically distant com- ters. We have already seen that North
munities. The sit-ins spread across the Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia
South in a short period of time because had numerous social-action churches and
activists, working through local move- direct-action organizations. By the time
ment centers, planned, coordinated, and the sit-ins occurred in Virginia, SCLC had
sustained them. They spread despite the affiliates throughout the state, and Rev.
swinging billy clubs of policemen, despite Wyatt Walker, who was the leader of Vir-
Ku Klux Klansmen, white mobs, murder- ginia's movement centers, was also the
ers, tear gas, and economic reprisals state Director of CORE and President of
(Southern Regional Council, 1960; Mat- the local NAACP. Similar patterns existed
thews and Prothro, 1966; Oberschall, in the other border states. Small wonder
1973). The pre-existing movement centers that in the month of February, 73% of
provided the resources and organization cities having sit-ins were located in Vir-
required to sustain the sit-ins in the face of ginia, North Carolina, and South
opposition. Carolina. Similarly, these cities produced
88% of the February clusters. This clus-
tering reflected both the great density of
SIT-IN CLUSTERS OF 1960
movement centers and a system of domi-
The organizational and personal networks nation less stringent than that of the deep
that produced the first cluster of sit-ins in South.
Oklahoma in 1958 have already been de- Table 3 reveals that in March a major
scribed. The cluster concept can be change took place: the majority of the
applied to the entire set of sit-ins of Feb- sit-ins occurred in cities of the deep
ruary and March 1960. Many of the cities South. With a few exceptions, the sit-ins
where sit-ins occurred can be grouped by in the deep South did not occur in clus-
geographic and temporal proximity. A ters. They occurred almost exclusively in
cluster is defined as two or more cities Southern cities where movement centers
within 75 miles of each other where sit-in were already established: Montgomery
activity took place within a span of 14 and Birmingham, Alabama; Baton Rouge
days. In Table 2, forty-one of the sixty- and New Orleans, Louisiana; Tallahassee,
nine cities having sit-ins during this two- Florida; Nashville and Memphis, Tennes-
month period have been grouped because see; and Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia.
they meet these criteria. Within this pe- Repression would have been too great on
riod 59% of the cities that had sit-ins and student protesters operating outside of the
related activity were part of clusters. The protection of such centers in the deep
percentage of these cities forming sit-in South. Thus, the decrease in clustering in
clusters is even more striking in the first the deep South reflected both the high
month: during February, 76% of cities level of repression and the absence of
having sit-ins were part of clusters, while dense networks of movement centers.
Table 2. Clusters of Cities with Sit-ins and Related Activities, February-March 1%0
Maximum number
of miles between
Number of days farthest two
between first sit-ins cities within
Cluster within cluster cluster
Fayetteville, Raleigh, N.C. 1 50

(2/9/60-2/10/60)
Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Fla. 2 50
(2/29/60-3/2/60)
Montgomery, Tuskegee, Ala. 2 25
(2/25/60-2/27/60)
Columbia, Florence, Sumter, S.C. 2 70
(3/2/60-3/4/60)
Austin, San Antonio, Tx. 2 75
(3/11/60-3/13/60)
Salisbury, Shelby, N.C. 2 60
(2/16/60-2/18/60)
Wilmington, New Bern, N.C. 2 75
(3/17/60-3/19/60)
Charlotte, N.C., Concord, Rock Hill, S.C. 3 50
(2/9/60-2/12/60)
Durham, Winston-Salem, High Point, N.C. 3 75
(2/8/60-2/11/60)
Chapel Hill, Henderson, N.C. 3 50
(2/25/60-2/28/60)
Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Fla. 3 40
(3/12/60-3/15/60)
Charleston, Orangeburg, Denmark, S.C. 4 70
(2/25/60-2/29/60)
Daytona Beach, Sanford, Orlando, Fla. 5 54
(3/2/60-3/7/60)
Houston, Galveston, Tx. 6 65
(3/5/60-3/11/60)
Richmond, Petersburg, Va. 7 30
(2/20/60-2/27/60)
Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, 11 35
Newport News (2/11/60-2/22/60)
Compiled from: Southern Regional Council. "The student protest movement, winter 1%0." SRC-13, April 1
1%0
Focusing on the internal movement cen- Telephone lines and the community
ters enables us to explain both the clus- "grapevine" sent forth protest instructions
tering phenomenon and its absence. and plans. These clusters were the sites of
Given the large proportion of sit-ins oc- numerous midday and late night meetings
curring in clusters, we can say that they where the black community assembled in
did not spread randomly. The clusters the churches, filled the collection plates,
represented the social and temporal space and vowed to mortgage their homes to
in which sit-ins were organized, coordi- raise the necessary bail-bond money in
nated, spread, and financed by the black case the protesting students were jailed.
community.8 Within these clusters, cars Black lawyers pledged their legal services
filled with organizers from SCLC, to the movement and black physicians
NAACP, and CORE raced between sit-in made their services available to injured
points relaying valuable information. demonstrators. Amidst these exciting
scenes, black spirituals that had grown out
8 Cities identified as part of a particular cluster of slavery calmed and deepened the par-
may actually be part of another cluster(s). I assume ticipants' commitment. A detailed view of
that the probability of shared organization and coor- the Nashville sit-ins provides an example
dination of sit-ins is high if two or more cities within
of these dynamics, because the Nashville
a 75-mile radius had sit-ins within a two-week pe-
riod. My data and analysis generally confirm this movement epitomized the sit-ins whether
assumption. they occurred singularly or in clusters.
Table 3. Cities with Sit-ins and Related Activities, Fe

Southeastern
Deep and Border
South States Non-South All States
February-March 1960
Number of cities with sit-ins, 2-month total 26 42 1 69
Region's % of 2-month total 38 61 1 100
February 1960
Number of cities with sit-ins 5 28 0 33
Region's % of Feb. total 15 85 0 100
% of 2-month total occurring in Feb. 19 67 0 48
March 1960
Number of cities with sit-ins 21 14 1 36
Region's % of March total 58 39 3 100
% of 2-month total occurring in March 81 33 100 52
Compiled from: Southern Regional Council. "The student protest
1960
NOTE: Deep South states are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas
and Border states are South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Te
Virginia. The non-South state is Ohio.
THE NASHVILLE SIT-IN vince them to postpone the demon-

MOVEMENT strations for a couple of days until money
could be raised. According to Rev. Smith
A well-developed, church-based move-
(1978), "NCLC had $87.50 in the treasury.
ment center headed by Rev. Kelly Miller
We had no lawyers, and we felt kind of a
Smith was organized in Nashville during
parental responsibility for those college
the late 1950s. The center, an affiliate of
kids. And we knew they were gonna be
SCLC, was called the Nashville Christian
put in jail, and we didn't know what else
Leadership Council (NCLC). Rev. James
would happen. And so some of us said,
Lawson, an expert tactician of nonviolent
'we need to wait until we get a lawyer,
protest, was in charge of NCLC's direct-
until we raise some funds.'"
action committee. Lawson received a call
NCLC leaders told the students that
from Rev. Douglas Moore about two days
they could collect the money through the
after the Greensboro sit-ins began. The
churches within a week. Then, according
Nashville group was ready to act because
to Rev. Smith:
a cadre of students had already received
training in nonviolent direct action. They James Bevel, then a student at American
had conducted "test sit-ins" in two large Baptist Theological Seminary, said that, 'rm
sick and tired of waiting,' which was a
department stores in downtown Nashville
strange thing to come from a kid who was
prior to the 1959 Christmas holidays.
only about nineteen years old. You see, the
Moreover, the group had already made rest of us were older . . . [Bevel said] 'If you
plans in late 1959 to begin continuous asked us to wait until next week, then next
sit-ins in 1960 with the explicit intention of week something would come up and you'd
desegregating Nashville (Smith, 1978; D. say wait until the next week and maybe we
Bevel, 1978). Thus, Greensboro provided never will get our freedom.' He said this, 'I
the impetus for the Nashville group to believe that something will happen in the
carry out its pre-existing strategy. situation that will make for the solution to
Rev. Smith's First Baptist Church be- some of these problems we're talking about.'
So we decided to go on. [Smith, 1978]
came the coordinating unit of the
Nashville sit-in movement. A decision to The proximity of four black colleges in
sit-in at local lunch counters on Saturday, Nashville-Fisk University, Tennessee
February 13 1960, was arrived at after State College, American Baptist
much debate. The adults (mostly minis- Theological Seminary, and Meharry
ters) of the NCLC met with the students at Medical School-facilitated the mobiliza-
movement headquarters and tried to con- tion of large numbers of students. In its
extensive ties between students and even Oklahoma City in 1958; indeed, this
churches, Nashville resembled the state of pattern undergirded the entire movement.
North Carolina. Indeed, John Lewis, Rev. Jemison's (1978) remark that the
James Bevel, and Bernard Lafayette, who Baton Rouge sit-in demonstrators "were
became major sit-in leaders, were stu- schooled right over there at our church;
dents at the American Baptist Theological they were sent out from here to go to the
Seminary and were taught there by Rev. lunch counters" typifies the relationship
Smith. Furthermore, they were student between the students and the local move-
leaders: ment centers.9 Jemison continued, "The
John Lewis, Bernard and myself were the
student leaders attended church here. We
major participants in the seminary. All of us had close ties because they were worship-
were like the top student leaders in our ping with us while we were working to-
schools. I think John at the time was the gether."
president of the Student Council. I was a Once the Nashville students arrived at
member of the Student Council. I was one of movement headquarters, they partici-
the editors of the yearbook. Bernard was an pated in workshops where they learned
editor of the yearbook. So all of us were like the strategies of nonviolent confrontation
the top leaders in our school. [J. Bevel, 1978]
from experts like Rev. Lawson, Rev.
Thus the student leaders could rapidly Metz Rollins, Rev. C. T. Vivian, and the
mobilize other students because they al- core group of students that Lawson had
ready had access to organized groups. already trained. This pool of trained lead-
Other writers (Von Eschen et al., 1971; ers was a pre-existing resource housed by
McAdam, 1979) have pointed out that NCLC. After the workshops, the students
these college networks played a key role were organized into groups with specific
in sit-in mobilization. However, the sit-in protest responsibilities, each having a
movement cannot be explained without spokesperson who had been trained by
also noting the crucial interaction between Lawson during the late 1950s. They then
black college students and local move- marched off to confront Nashville's segre-
ment centers. Speaking of Rev. Smith and gated lunch counters and agents of social
his church, Bevel recalled, "the First control.
Baptist basically had the Baptist people The adult black community immedi-
who went to Fisk and Meharry and Ten- ately mobilized to support the students.
nessee State, and the Seminary were ba- Shortly after the demonstrations began,
sically members of his church" (J. Bevel, large numbers of students were arrested.
1978). These students had been intro- According to Rev. Smith,
duced to the Civil Rights movement while We just launched out on something that
they attended church. looked perfectly crazy and scores of people
On the first day of the sit-ins in were being arrested, and paddy wagons were
Nashville, students gathered in front of full and the people out in downtown couldn't
their respective campuses. NCLC sent understand what was going on, people just
cars to each college to transport the stu- welcoming being arrested, that ran against
everything they had ever seen.... I've for-
dents to Rev. Smith's church. Again, the
gotten how much we needed that day, and
major organizational tasks were per-
we got everything we needed. [That par-
formed in the church which served as the
ticular day?] Yes, sir. About $40,000. We
coordinating unit of the local movement needed something like $40,000 in fives. And
center, rather than on the campuses. we had all the money. Not in fives, but in
Coordination of sit-in activity between the bail. Every bit of it came up. You know-
college community and the churches was property and this kind of thing ... and there
made less difficult because many of the were fourteen black lawyers in this town.
students (especially student leaders) were Every black lawyer made himself available
immersed in the local movement centers to us. [Smith, 1978]
prior to the sit-ins. The pattern of close
connection between student demon- 9 For further evidence of the centrality of
strators and adult leaders had already student-church ties in other cities that had sit-ins see
existed in places such as Greensboro and Morris, forthcoming.
Thus, basic, pre-existing resources in the interdependence of the movement and the
dominated community were used to ac- black community. A formal structure
complish political goals. It was suggested called the Nashville Nonviolent Move-
to Rev. Smith that a massive movement ment was developed to direct sit-in activi-
such as that in Nashville would need out- ties. Its two substructures, the Student
side resources. He replied, Central Committee and the Nashville
Now let me quickly say to you that in early Christian Leadership Council, worked
1960, when we were really out there on the closely together and had overlapping
line, the community stood up. We stood to- membership (Reverends Lawson and Vi-
gether. This community had proven that this vian were members of both groups). The
stereotyped notion of black folk can't work Central Committee usually consisted of 25
together is just false. We worked together a to 30 students drawn from all the local
lot better than the white organizations. So colleges. NCLC represented adult minis-
those people fell in line. [Smith, 1978]
ters and the black community. The two
Rev. Smith's comments are applicable groups established committees to accom-
beyond Nashville. For example, in plish specific tasks, including a finance
Orangeburg, after hundreds of students committee, a telephone, publicity, and
were arrested and brutalized, the adult news committee, and a work committee.
black community came solidly to their aid. The work committee had subgroups re-
Bond was set at $200 per student, and 388 sponsible for painting protest signs and
students were arrested. Over $75,000 was providing food and transportation. The
needed, and adults came forth to put up city's black lawyers became the move-
their homes and property in order to get ment's defense team, students from
students out of jail. Rev. McCollom, the Meharry Medical School were the medical
leader of the Orangeburg movement cen- team.
ter, remarked that, "there was no schism This intricate structure propelled and
between the student community and the guided the sit-in movement of Nashville.
adult community in Orangeburg" A clear-cut division of labor developed
(McCollom, 1978). Jim McCain (1978) of between the Central Committee and the
CORE, who played a central role in or- NCLC. The Central Committee's major
ganizing sit-ins across South Carolina and responsibilities were to train, organize,
in Florida, reported that community sup- and coordinate the demonstration. The
port was widespread. According to Julian NCLC developed the movement's finan-
Bond (1980), a student leader of Atlanta's cial structure and coordinated relations
sit-ins, "black property owners put up between the community and the student
bond which probably amounted to movement. Diane Nash Bevel, a major
$100,000" to get sit-in demonstrators re- student leader of the Nashville sit-ins, was
leased from jail. asked why the students did not take care
These patterns were repeated across the of their own finances and build their own
South. This community support should relationships with the larger community.
not be surprising, considering the number She replied,
of ministers and congregations involved
before and during the movement. Yet, We didn't want to be bothered keeping track
Zinn, an eyewitness to many of these of money that was collected at the rallies and
events, wrote, "Spontaneity and self- stuff. We were just pleased that NCLC
sufficiency were the hallmarks of the sit- would do that, and would handle the book-
ins; without adult advice or consent, the keeping and all that trouble that went along
with having money. . . . Besides, we were
students planned and carried them
much too busy sitting-in and going to jail and
through" (1964:29). This myopia illus-
that kind of thing. There wasn't really the
trates the inadequacies of analyses that stability of a bookkeeper, for instance. We
neglect or ignore the internal structure of didn't want to be bothered with developing
oppressed communities and protest that kind of stability. . . . We were very
movements. pleased to form this alliance with NCLC who
The continuing development of the would sponsor the rallies and coordinate the
Nashville sit-ins sheds further light on thecommunity support among the adults and
keep track of the money, while we sat-in and Sometimes we had them more than once a
... well, it took all our time, and we were week if we needed to. When things were
really totally immersed in it. My day would really hot we called a meeting at eight
sometimes start . .. well we'd have meetings o'clock in the morning. We'd call one for
in the morning at six o'clock, before classes, -twelve that day, twelve noon, and the place
and work steady to extremely late at night, would be full. We had what we called our
organizing the sit-ins, getting publicity out to wire service. People got on telephones, that
the students that we were having a sit-in, and was our wire service, and they would fill that
where and what time we would meet. Con- building. They'd fill that building in just a
vincing people, and talking to people, calm- matter of relatively short time."
ing people's fears, going to class, at the same
At these mass meetings, ministers from
time. It was a really busy, busy time for all of
across the city turned over the money that
the people on the Central Committee. We
were trying to teach nonviolence, maintain their respective churches had donated to
order among a large, large number of people. the movement. Thousands of dollars were
That was- about all we could handle. [D. collected at the mass meetings while black
Bevel, 1978] adults, ministers, and students sang such
lyrics as "Before Fd be a slave, Fd rather
Students are ideal participants in protest
be buried in my grave." Then too, bundles
activities. Usually they do not have
of leaflets were given to adults at mass
families to support, employer's rules and
meetings who then distributed them
dictates to follow, and crystallized ideas
throughout the black community. This
as to what is "impossible" and "unrealis-
shows how the movement built communi-
tic." Students have free time and bound-
cation channels through which vital in-
less energy to pursue causes they consider
formation, strategies, and plans were dis-
worthwhile and imperative (Lipset and
seminated.
Wolin, 1965:3; McCarthy and Zald,
During the Nashville sit-ins, word went
1973:10). McPhail's (1971:1069) finding
out to the black community not to shop
that young, single, unemployed males
downtown.
were ideal participants in civil disorders
and McPhail and Millers (1973:726) dis- We didn't organize the boycott. We did not
cussion of availability for participation in organize the boycott. The boycott came
about. We don't know how it happened. I tell
the assembly process parallels this notion
you there are a lot of little mystical elements
that students are ideal participants in
in there, little spots that defy rational expla-
protest activities. Nevertheless, although
nation. . . . Now, we promoted it. We
black students were able to engage in adopted it. But we did not sit down one day
protest activities continuously because of and organize a boycott . . . ninety-nine per-
their student status, a one-sided focus on cent of the black people in this community
them diverts attention from the larger stayed away from downtown during the
community, which had undergone consid- boycott. It was a fantastic thing-successful.
erable radicalization. Speaking of the It was fantastically successful. [Smith,, 1978]
adults, James Bevel (1978), a student or-
Yet the boycott was largely organized
ganizer of the Nashville sit-ins, remarked,
by NCLC. According to Bevel, Dr. Vivian
"But when you talk to each individual,
Henderson, who was head of Fisk Uni-
they talked just like we talked-the stu-
versity's economic department and a
dents. They had jobs and they were
member of NCLC, played a key role in the
adults. But basically, their position would
boycott, because
be just like ours. They played different
roles because they were in different-they Vivian Henderson was basically responsible
had to relate based on where they were in for calling the boycott. He got up at a mass
meeting and said, 'at least what we could do
the community" (J. Bevel, 1978).
to support students, if we've got any de-
The adults of the NCLC organized the
cency, we can just stop paying bills and just
black community to support the militant
don't shop until this thing is resolved.' A
student sit-in movement. Once the move- very indignant type of speech he made. It
ment began, NCLC instituted weekly and just caught on. All the bourgeois women
sometimes daily mass meetings in the would come to the meeting, and they just got
churches. Rev. Smith (1978) recalled, on the phone and called up everybody, all
the doctors' wives and things. They just got colleges, and overlapping personal net-
on the phone and called 300 or 400 people works provided the framework through
and told them don't shop downtown. Fi- which the sit-ins emerged and spread.
nally there was just a total boycott down- Previous writings on the sit-ins (e.g.,
town. There would be no black people
Lomax, 1962; Zinn, 1964; Matthews and
downtown at all. [J. Bevel, 1978]
Prothro, 1966; Killian, 1968; Meier and
Activists were stationed downtown to in- Rudwick, 1973; Piven and Cloward, 1977)
sure that blacks knew not to shop. Ac- have persistently portrayed pre-existing
cording to Rev. Smith, shortly after the organization as an after-the-fact accretion
boycott was initiated, merchants began on student spontaneity. The dominant
coming to his home wanting to talk. Diane view is that SCLC, CORE, NAACP, and
Nash Bevel attributed the boycott's effec- community leaders rushed into a dynamic
tiveness to reduced profits during the campus movement after it was well
Easter shopping season. It also changed underway, while my data provide evi-
the merchant's attitude toward the sit-ins. dence that those organizational and com-
It was interesting the difference that [the munity forces were at the core of the sit-in
boycott] made in terms of how the managers movement from its beginning. Thus, pre-
were willing to talk with us, because see we existing organizations provided the sit-ins
had talked with the managers of the stores. with the resources and communication
We had a meeting at the very beginning and networks needed for their emergence and
they had kind of listened to us politely, and development.
said, 'well, we just can't do it. We can't de-
Prior to 1960 the sit-in was far from
segregate the counters because we will lose
being the dominant tactic of the Civil
money and that's the end of it.' So, after the
Rights movement, yet in early 1960, sit-in
economic withdrawal, they were eager to
talk with us, and try to work up some solu- demonstrations swept through thirteen
tion. [D. Bevel, 1978] states and hundreds of communities
within two months. Almost instantly sit-
In early 1960 the white power structure ins became the major tactic and focus of
of Nashville was forced to desegregate a the movement. A tactical innovation had
number of private establishments and occurred.
public transportation facilities. SNCC' s Consistent with Proposition 2, the data
Student Voice reported that in Nashville, strongly suggest that the 1960 Greensboro
"A long series of negotiations followed the sit-in occurred at the time when the neces-
demonstrations, and on May 10, 6 down- sary and sufficient condition for the rapid
town stores integrated their lunch coun- diffusion of sit-ins was present. That con-
ters. Since this time others have followed dition was the existence of well-developed
suit, and some stores have hired Negroes and widespread internal organization. Be-
in positions other than those of menial cause this internal organization was al-
workers for the first time" (Student Voice, ready firmly in place prior to 1960, activist
August, 1960). Daily demonstrations by groups across the South were in a position
hundred of students refusing to accept to quickly initiate sit-ins. The rapidity
bond so that they could be released from with which sit-ins were organized gave the
jail, coupled with the boycott, gave blacks appearance that they were spontaneous.
the upper hand in the conflict situation. This appearance was accentuated because
Careful organization and planning was the most demonstrators were students rather
hallmark of the Nashville sit-in move- than veteran Civil Rights activists.
ment. Yet the data show that the student or-
ganizers of the sit-ins were closely tied to
the internal organization of the emerging
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Civil Rights movement. Prior student/
Consistent with Proposition 1, I have pre- activist ties had been formed through
sented evidence that pre-existing social church affiliations and youth wings of
strctures played a central role in the 1960 Civil Rights organizations. In short, stu-
sit-in movement. Pre-existing activist dents and seasoned activists were able to
groups, formal movement organizations, rapidly coordinate the sit-ins because both
were anchored to the same organization. nomic boycotts. Because the internal or-
Innovations in political movements ganization was widespread, these effec-
arise in the context of an active opposi- tive counter measures were employed in
tion. The organization of the Civil Rights Black communities across the South.
movement provided the resources that Thus, it was well-developed and wide-
sustained diffusion of the sit-ins in the face spread internal organization that enabled
of attack. This vast internal organization the 1960 sit-ins to rapidly diffuse into a
consisted of local movement centers, ex- major tactical innovation of the Civil
perienced activists who had amassed or- Rights movement.
ganizing skills, direct-action organi- Propositon 3 maintains that pre-existing
zations, communication systems between internal organization establishes the types
centers, pre-existing strategies for dealing of innovations that can occur within
with the opposition, workshops and movements. The internal organization
training procedures, fund-raising tech- that gave rise to the sit-ins specialized in
niques, and community mobilization what was called nonviolent direct action.
techniques. This approach consisted of a battery of
The pre-existing internal organization tactics that were disruptive but peaceful.
enabled organizers to quickly disseminate The nonviolent approach readily fitted
the "sit-in" idea to groups already fa- into the ideological and organizational
vorably disposed toward direct action. In framework of the black church, and pro-
the innovation/diffusion literature (e.g., vided ministers, students, and ordinary
Coleman et al., 1957; Lionberger, 1960; working people with a method for entering
Rogers, 1962) a positive decision by directly into the political process.
numerous actors to adopt a new item is The movement centers that emerged
treated as a central problem. In the case of following the Montgomery bus boycott
the sit-ins, the adoption problem was were developed around nonviolent ap-
largely solved by the pre-existing organi- proaches to social change. Indeed, the
zation. Since that organization housed primary goal of these centers was to build
groups that had already identified with nonviolent movements. Yet, nonviolent
"confrontational politics," little time was confrontations as a disciplined form of
lost on debates as to whether sit-ins collective action was relatively new to the
should be adopted. Thus, the diffusion black masses of the South. The activists
process did not become bogged down at within the movement centers sys-
the adoption stage. tematically introduced blacks to the non-
Repression might have prevented the violent approach. They organized non-
diffusion process. The authorities and violent workshops and conducted them on
white extremist groups attempted to pre- a routine basis in the churches and protest
vent the spread of the sit-ins by immedi- organizations. Literature from organi-
ately arresting the demonstrators, em- zations (e.g., Fellowship of Reconciliation
ploying brutal force, and refusing to report and CORE) that specialized in the non-
the sit-ins in the local press. The organi- violent approach was made available
zational efficiency of the movement cen- through the centers. Skilled nonviolent
ters prevailed against the opposition. strategists (e.g., Bayard Rustin, James
Existing recruiting and training proce- Lawson, and Glenn Smiley) travelled
dures made it possible for jailed demon- between centers training leaders how to
strators to be instantly replaced. When conduct nonviolent campaigns. The var-
heavy fines were leveled against the ied tactics-mass marches, negotiations,
movement, activists were able generally boycotts, sit-ins-associated with direct
to raise large sums of money through their action became common knowledge to ac-
pre-existing community contacts. The tivists in the centers. Moreover, in the late
pre-existing communication networks fifties activists began experimenting with
easily overcame the problems imposed by these tactics and urging the community to
news blackouts. Moreover, skilled ac- become involved with nonviolent con-
tivists were able to weaken the stance of frontations. Meier and Rudwick (1976)
the opposition by rapidly organizing eco- have shown that sit-ins at segregated
facilities were conducted by black ac- Future research on collective action that
tivists in the nineteen forties and late fif- treats internal organization as a topic in its
ties. But this tactic remained relatively own right will further increase our knowl-
isolated and sporadic and did not diffuse edge of the dynamics of social move-
throughout the larger community. Meier and ments.
Rudwick (1976:384) conclude that diffu-
sion did not occur before 1960 because the
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Black Southern Student Sit-in Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization

Author(s): Aldon Morris

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

status attainment." Paper presented to the Wesolowski, Wlodzimierz

BLACK SOUTHERN STUDENT SIT-IN MOVEMENT: AN ANALYSIS

American Sociological Review 1981, Vol. 46 (December:744-767)

of this approach (e.g. Gamson, 1975; Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),

movement's beginning, but were links in by issuing injunctions which prevented

Steele in Tallahassee, Shuttlesworth in After the meeting [SCLC organizing

In Durham, North Carolina, churches

ready underway. According to Carey Point, North Carolina, and Rev. C. A.

and said, you know, 'this

Fayetteville, Raleigh, N.C. 1 50

Table 3. Cities with Sit-ins and Related Activities, Fe

THE NASHVILLE SIT-IN vince them to postpone the demon-

pendent on outside resources: elites, Lawson, James

Lionberger, H. F. forth- Origins of the Civil Rights Movement. New

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