The Great Plains Sit-In Movement, 1958-60

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1996 THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT, 1958-60 Ronald Walters Howard University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Walters, Ronald, "THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT, 1958-60" (1996). Great Plains Quarterly. 1093. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1093 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE GREAT PLAINS SIT.. IN MOVEMENT, 1958 .. 60 RONALD WALTERS In 1960, black youths conducted a "sit-in" in Some studies of the NAACP during the civil Greensboro, North Carolina to obtain the rights movement mention Oklahoma sit-ins right to eat at a segregated lunch counter. but do not mention Wichita, Kansas at alLZ Others quickly replicated sit-ins throughout And yet the first modern sit-in may have been the South and, just as quickly, the press la in Wichita. beled Greensboro the "first" sit-in. Historian These accounts are inaccurate and incom David Levering Lewis, for instance, said: plete but they also symbolize the extent to "There were not a few white southerners, and which the civil rights movement in general probably a majority of white northerners, who has been written about almost exclusively from would have wished to say to the first sit-in the perspective of what occurred in the South. students, as did the woman in the Greensboro Considering that journalists wrote the first Woolworth's, 'you should have done this ten accounts, it may have been their initial per years ago.'" Even data-oriented social scientists spective that was responsible for the subse such as Doug McAdams portray the sit-ins as quent lapse by serious scholars. "beginning in early February of 1960 ...."1 For example, in the throes of the Mont gomery Bus Boycott in 1956, the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, Grover Hall, Jr., chal lenged northern journalists to report on north ern race friction. Hall wrote U.S. News and Ronald Walters, a participant in the sit-in that is the World Report describing how northern papers subject of this paper, is currently professor and chairman of political science at Howard University, Washington, such as the Minneapolis Morning Tribune and D.C. One of his four books, Black Presidential the Chicago Daily News put the Montgomery Politics in America (1989), won the Ralph Bunche story on the front page and news about their Prize from the American Political Association. own race friction on the back pages. Obvi ously, to the northern editors, the most news worthy incidents of race relations were [GPQ 16 (Spring 1996): 85-941 occurring in the South, where challenges to 85 86 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1996 age-old social practices, originating in the in churches, or colleges initiated 75 percent of stitution of slavery, were taking place.3 sit-ins or other direct-action tactics in the At first Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial movement.7 writer Lauren Soth, of the Des Moines Register, Morris's research also revealed that two of was typical of those who responded, saying the earliest of the modern sit-ins occurred in that this southern focus was natural, since "the Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma City, Okla [race] problem simply did not exist" in the homa, under the auspices of the NAACP North.4 Nevertheless, his and a host of other Youth Councils.8 In an early article, Morris, papers subsequently carried stories about their following the seminal work of Martin Oppen own racial problems, but because the drama in heimer, repeated an error in stating that: "the the South was created by the danger of blacks first sit-in cluster occurred in Oklahoma in challenging the existing racial order, the real 1958 and spread to cities within a hundred story of civil rights was still covered as the mile radius ... "9 Later, after considerable pri southern story. mary research, he said in his comprehensive One casualty of this perspective is that work on the subject: "Less than a week after scholarship on many northern aspects of both [the sit-ins] in Wichita, Clara Luper's group in the civil rights movement and the more ag Oklahoma City initiated its planned sit-ins."!O gressive black liberation movement have been Thus, one objective of this paper is to estab neglected. As Howard Zinn was to suggest, lish the correct sequence of events among the after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the move chain of early sit-ins occurring in the Great ment for social change in the South moved Plains that were precipitating events for so slowly.s The significance of the sit-in move cial action in that region as well as in the ment was that it electrified southern activists South.!! as a model for action throughout the South. Second, as a result of the journalistic treat Besides challenging segregation at lunch ment referred to above, as well as early work counters and restaurants, the movement such as that by Oppenheimer, which appears quickly became elaborated into many other to divorce the Great Plains movement from tactics of confrontation, such as "kneel-ins" the South, scholars have viewed the early at churches, "wade-ins" at swimming pools, Great Plains sit-ins as isolated events. In fact, "stand-ins" at voter registration places, and as a political tactic in confronting segregation others. based on racial discrimination, they had a his In perhaps the major scholarly work on sit torical sequence that had been pioneered by in movements, sociologist Aldon Morris stated the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Con that despite the Greensboro sit-in's mythic gress of Racial Equality as early as the 1940s. status as the "first," others had occurred in at The importance of the Wichita and Okla least fifteen cities between 1957 and February homa City sit-ins, and others in the pre-1960s 1960.6 His study of the linkage between the period, was their proximity to the modern civil Greensboro event and other such actions in rights movement, their linkage to the sit-ins the South, however, confirmed its quickening that did occur beginning in 1960, and their effect on the entire movement. He sought to engagement of the generation of post-World analyze the sit-ins within the context of re War II youth in the process of social change. source mobilization theory, which posited the importance of preexisting social supports THE WICHITA SIT-IN within the black community, such as civil rights organizations and churches. Political Census data show that between 1950 and scientist Doug McAdams's data also indicates 1960 the total population of Wichita, Kansas, the important function of sit-ins and that stu grew very quickly, from 168,000 to 255,000, dent groups associated with the NAACP, and by 1960 its black population was nearly THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT 87 20,000. 12 This was a significant pattern of post Kansas, headed by state conference president War population growth made possible by a Dr. C. A. Rocquemore, defined both racism developing aircraft industry, which, although and its opposition. The Wichita NAACP was it was structured to serve wartime production, headed by a youthful and dynamic attorney, rapidly made the transition to commercial Chester I. Lewis, and the December 1958 issue markets. Indeed, national publications could of The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, write of Wichita as a "boom city" when a carried pictures of the local and state officers. house-building frenzy took the city to twice The Wichita Youth Council of the NAACP its 1945 size. was headed from 1958 to 1960 by Ronald Growth was made possible by such giants as Walters, then a local college student, the au Boeing Airplane Company, which became the thor of this article. The Youth Council in largest employer, moving from 1402 workers cluded high school and college-age youth, the immediately after WW II to 25,855 by 1955, Little Rock generation. The Council was a with an annual payroll of $126 million. The novelty, since youth had not featured promi city had also become a magnet for companies nently in social change movements until this building popular small commercial aircraft time. The Council recognized that nowhere such as Cessna and Beech Aircraft Company, in the city could blacks sit down to eat in a each with about one-third the sales of Boeing.13 dignified manner in white-owned restaurants. But although the rising economy incorpo The many blacks who worked downtown suf rated a segment of the black community who fered from this disadvantage as well as the worked in aircraft and related industries, the slight to their humanity of being served while social fabric of the city was distinctly segre standing behind a board at the end of the gated. Although Kansas had "bled" to keep lunch counters at F.W. Woolworth, Kress and slavery from its territory, Wichita resembled a Company, and other stores. Southern city in the occurrence of murder and In the spring of 1958, the Youth Council lynching ofblacks. 14 Blacks had suffered a long decided to integrate the lunch counters down history of discrimination and segregation in town and selected Dockum Drug Store, a Wichita and even by the 1950s, although pub Rexall pharmacy located on one of the busiest lic transportation was integrated, blacks were midtown intersections, at Douglass and Mar not welcome in white elementary schools, the ket streets.

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