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1996

THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT, 1958-60

Ronald Walters Howard University

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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. This idea came from a meeting aters, churches, restaurants, parks, or other with attorney Franklin Williams, then west places of public accommodation. According coast regional secretary of the NAACP, who to Robert Newby, participant in the Wichita visited Wichita and explained the sit-in tac­ sit-in and professor of sociology at Central tic used at UCLA to integrate the main din­ Michigan University, "In the South, every­ ing hall in the 1940s. 16 Once the Youth thing was marked 'white' or 'black.' Just over Council had decided to act, it held workshops in Kansas City [Missouri] signs were every­ on how to conduct the actual sit-in in the where. But in Wichita there were no signs. basement of the St. Peter Claver Catholic Everyone just knew the rules and that you church. didn't break them."15 Complaints of discrimi­ The Council employed a comic book on nation in employment were commonplace as the method of non-violence, prepared by the the rising middle class of doctors, lawyers, SCLC, one of more than 2500 such books that postal clerks, and education professionals had been distributed all over the country. struggled for upward mobility. Chester Bowles, later U.S. Ambassador to In­ As they had in many such communities, dia, wrote about the techniques covered in Wichita blacks had established a small but the comic book in an article about using active NAACP chapter in the 1920s. The sev­ Gandhi's teachings to achieve civil rights. In eral chapters located in cities throughout the pamphlet: 88 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1996

... a Negro preacher said to his congrega­ able ambiguity and even fear among the adults tion: "Now let's practice it again. I'm white concerning how whites would react to the sit­ man and I insult you, I shove you, maybe I in, so a significant number of youths contin­ hit you. What do you do?" ued to form the support base for the movement. The sit-in continued until 7 August, when Answer: Walter Heiger, manager of the Dockum Store, announced that he would serve everyone with­ "I keep my temper. I do not budge. I do not out regard to race. Carol Parks remembered strike back. I turn the other cheek."17 that it ended without statement or fanfare from the participants because everyone was emo­ The Youth Council taught this non-violent tionally drained.23 It was Chester Lewis, the method as part of their training for the actual Wichita NAACP head who had been support­ sit-ins. They felt that this method, even though ive of the action, who broke with his colleagues its users were not reflecting a particular reli­ and the national office to pronounce the sit­ gious practice, would give the demonstration in a victory, indicating that he did not know both moral authority and discipline. what "right" proprietors were defining when The sit-in began on Saturday, 12 July 1958 they asserted the right to do something against and lasted for several weeks. 18 Each of the the Judeo-Christian precepts of the country.24 twelve to fifteen youths who participated was to march in, sit on the stools at the lunch THE OKLAHOMA SIT-IN counter, and ask for service. After being re­ fused the young demonstrators continued to Oklahoma City was a somewhat larger city sit silently on the stools. 19 According to a re­ than Wichita, but they shared a similar cul­ porter, "On a bright warm Saturday morning ture, even though people in Wichita consid­ in July 1958, young Carol Parks [vice presi­ ered themselves more "northern," with all the dent of the Youth Council] breathed deeply, status distinctions that implied. Oklahoma was opened the door to the Dockum Drug Store in more southern in terms of its culture and ra­ downtown Wichita and sat on one of the eight cial feelings and the barriers constructed stools at the lunch counter.... [She explained,] against the black community. Oklahoma City 'This was my first experience with fear."'2o had also experienced significant growth be­ Eventually each time demonstrators arrived tween 1950 and 1960, expanding from 244,000 the lunch counter put out a sign reading, "This to 324,000, with a black population of 12 per­ Fountain Temporarily Closed," which told the cent, or about 35,000, by 1960. 25 victorious demonstrators that they were forc­ In parts of Oklahoma, including Oklahoma ing the restaurant to forego income in order City, the signs that marked a segregated soci­ to practice racial discrimination. The sit-in ety were occasionally in evidence, but its oil pattern was repeated without much conflict, and agriculture sectors sparked economic except the usual comments from dissatisfied progress for many, even some blacks. Prosper­ customers. One potentially serious challenge ity, as in other cities, created upward mobility from a considerable number of young white that inevitably led blacks to challenge the ra­ toughs was thwarted by the presence of the cial barriers. police.21 In 1957 the Oklahoma City Youth Council The black community slowly became aware planned to oppose lunch counter discrimina­ that the sit-in was occurring, but the adult tion.26 They selected five stores: John A. Brown chapter of NAACP in Wichita did not sup­ Luncheonette, Veazey's Drug Store, Katz Drug, port it because at that time the national office Kress, and Green's Variety Store {ultimately was cool to direct action tactics, favoring le­ not confronted because the management re­ gal strategies instead.22 There was consider- lented).27 The Council was led by Barbara THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT 89

Posey, a dynamic fifteen-year-old, and its adult One may infer from this statement that the adviser was Ms. Clara Luper, a strong and youthful leader was driven by a deep religious committed NAACP veteran. The group ne­ conviction. Aldon Morris has pointed to the gotiated unsuccessfully by letter with repre­ significance of community resources such as sentatives of the Katz Drug Store chain during churches in the movement, and although, 1958, and most attempts to speak directly with except for one training session, churches were the store managers were unsuccessful as well. not involved in the Wichita sit-in, Calvary Thus, on 19 August 1958 a lunch counter Baptist appeared to be a central organizing sit-in was launched against the Katz Drug place and staging area for the Oklahoma move­ Store, located at 200 West Main, by eight ment. On 10 August 1960 a group of 104 youths from five to fifteen years of age. They youths went single-file from the Calvary Bap­ requested service and when they were refused, tist Church at Northeast Third and Walnut they asked for the store policy on discrimina­ Streets to the Cravens Building, where they tion. The store manager, J. B. Masoner, ex­ mingled in the lobby and asked to be served at plained that the store policy was not to serve the Anna Maude Cafeteria.32 Other churches Negroes, so they remained seated at the lunch contributed both space and funds to the move­ counter.2S When asked by reporters about the ment. The Reverend Glenn Smiley, a Meth­ sit-in, James Stewart, President of the Okla­ odist minister who worked for the Fellowship homa adult chapter of NAACP said that this of Reconciliation (FOR), came to the city and "test case" was supervised by the Youth Chap­ conducted non-violence workshops at Calvary. ter and added: "I believe there has been one Journalist Kyle Ragland says that Smiley indi­ just recently in a drugstore in Wichita, Kan­ cated that "Sit-ins are 'essentially a religious sas."29 The initial Oklahoma City demonstra­ protest and movement ... .' Although the Na­ tion lasted two days before the store manager tional Association for the Advancement of decided to serve the youths. Colored People-a secular group-has been From this successful venture, the youths active in sit-ins, there frequently is a strong moved their protest to the Kress and John A. link with church members and leaders."33 FOR Brown luncheonettes. At Kress they were would be an important trainer in subsequent served,30 but John A. Brown refused to pro­ sit-ins occurring in many Southern cities. vide integrated service despite often daily sit­ The adult leadership of the NAACP ins. Nevertheless, Barbara Posey evidenced a strongly supported the youth protestors. Dr. faith that their movement would ultimately E. C. Moon, Jr., president of the Oklahoma be successful: NAACP, led a small group of protesters at Calvary in singing "America" before they went I am convinced that Oklahoma people are out. In February 1959, Chester Lewis, head of strong, eager and youthful at heart. They the Wichita branch of the NAACP, had come have a spirit which is called the Sooner to Muscogee, Oklahoma, to speak to about Spirit. This spirit gives people a firm belief three hundred NAACP Youth Council mem­ in themselves and in the future. It points bers. He reminded them of the courage it took with pride to what has already been done in to fight for freedom and then appealed directly the peaceful integration of buses, theaters, to the adult chapter to support the movement. and schools and looks forward to the day An editorial in The Black Dispatch, a local black when segregation in all public eating places newspaper, backed up Lewis: will be abolished. I do not believe that John A. Brown's and other restaurants owners We feel that this suggestion is appropriate will continue to hold on to a long lost dream to the youth movement in Oklahoma city. of white supremacy.3l For several months, members of the local 90 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1996

NAACP Youth Council have been trying RELEVANCE OF THE GREAT PLAINS to obtain first-class citizenship in places of SIT-INS public accommodation. They have been partially successful. But where they have As indicated above, civil rights scholars failed it was because of ungiven support of have tended to view the Great Plains sit-ins as adults.34 isolated phenomena. For example, Aldon Morris says that "Greensboro would have hap­ When the sit-in began in Oklahoma City in pened with or without Wichita," and Clay­ 1958, the state executive committee of the borne Carson, editor of the Martin Luther NAACP released a statement by the national King, Jr., Papers, has said that the Wichita sit­ office stating that they "wholeheartedly en­ in had no effect on Greensboro-"the drama dorsed the efforts of the local NAACP chap­ of race occurs in every locality."40 ter to gain first-class citizenship for Negroes."35 While these are credible opinions, they are The executive committee also expressed sym­ by no means the last word on the matter. Given pathy for sit-ins in other cities where the na­ the links between the Wichita sit-ins and tional office had not extended sponsorship or those in Oklahoma and the links between the support. The Youth Council acknowledged this Oklahoma sit-ins and the rest of the country, endorsement but decided not to substitute while "Greensboro would have happened with adults for the high school and college youth or without Wichita," it would likely have it was recruiting to continue the protest.36 In happened in another manner and perhaps in any case, the endorsement may have signaled another place and time. The NAACP Youth a change in the policy of the national office Councils and the nationwide NAACP net­ toward local direct-action tactics like the sit­ work would have been different if the Great ins, and in Oklahoma they continued from Plains Youth Councils had not pioneered the 1958 to 1961. sit-ins. Consider these two critical linkages: One direct effect of the Oklahoma City sit­ The Wichita-Oklahoma Link. The Wichita ins was that a bill was introduced into the and the Oklahoma City sit-ins came in close state legislature of the adjacent state of Ar­ proximity, Wichita inJuly and August of 1958 kansas to prohibit sit-ins. The bill provided and Oklahoma City two weeks after. Although for a protester to be fined and imprisoned for we cannot conclude that one was the cause of refusing to leave any business establishment the other or that the adaptive response was other than a common carrier. 37 When the direct, the Oklahoma NAACP officials, pre­ Oklahoma sit-ins became national news, they sumably including Clara Luper, and even exposed the weakness of the U.S. Civil Rights white store managers, knew of the Wichita Commission. The commission held a news sit-in that had recently taken place only two conference in September of 1958, to announce hundred miles away. its agenda, but when a reporter asked Chair­ The Oklahoma-Greensboro Link. The Okla­ man John Hannah whether the commission homa sit-ins achieved national prominence would intervene with relief for the Oklahoma and lasted for nearly five years. By 1959 the demonstrators, Hannah admitted that the NAACP national office claimed the sit-ins as commission was powerless to act, since it had part of their legacy. The December 1958 is­ been given no mandate by Congress.38 The sue of The Crisis carried a picture of Okla­ Oklahoma sit-ins spread immediately to Enid homa youths demonstrating at Brown's lunch and Muscogee, which became integral to mo­ counter with a story by Barbara Posey and bilizing the state NAACP behind the move­ Gwendolyn Fuller, leaders of the movement.41 ment.39 By 1960 the demonstrations were The NAACP Annual Report for 1959 car­ statewide. ried stories of actions taken by other youth THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT 91 chapters against eating facilities. The Wash­ chapter of the NAACP. Two years before, ington University chapter of the NAACP youth chapters of the NAACP in Wichita, started a protest against discrimination by the Kansas, and in Oklahoma City, Okla.[sic] off-campus Santora restaurant, later taken up had staged successful pilot sit-in campaigns by the St. Louis adult branch. After campus­ in those cities [sic] winning lunch counter wide protests and a court decision, the Santora desegregation in sixty or more stores.45 restaurant changed its policy. The University of Chicago chapter picketed the Tropical Hut At least in the mind of the NAACP execu­ Restaurant near its campus for advertising for tive director there was a direct link between a "white waitress" and forced the restaurant to the "pilot" Wichita and Oklahoma sit-ins and change its employment policy. The Univer­ the Greensboro sit-in, in the form of Greens­ sity of Indiana chapter at Bloomington was boro participants who were members of the successful in its campus-wide protest against NAACP youth network and presumably had barber shops that refused black customers, and knowledge of the earlier sit-ins. In fact, Jo­ the Ohio State University chapter success­ seph McNiel and Ezell Blair, the two students fully challenged the administration to prohibit mentioned by Wilkins, had both attended the discrimination in off-campus housing. 42 1960 Accent on Youth conference and re­ Indeed, at the 1959 NAACP Convention, ported on the Greensboro sit-ins.46 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., himself presented Nevertheless, by the time the 1960 Annual citations to the NAACP youth councils of Report of the NAACP was being written, the Oklahoma City and St. Louis that had initi­ Greensboro tide had swept the South and the ated sit-ins.43 So important had the youth pro­ Student Non-violent Coordinating Commit­ test movement become within the NAACP tee-rather than the NAACP-was receiving that the national organization devoted its fifty­ the lion's share of the credit. Wilkins's re­ first annual conference in 1960, to an "Ac­ marks seemed to strike a defensive tone, since cent on Youth," hosting 349 youths from 49 the NAACP had been late in throwing its full states. The conferees held a special "Youth support behind the activities of its own youth. Freedom Fund Dinner" to raise money for their This defensiveness suggests the tensions activities. In his keynote address to the con­ that had begun to unfold among the "Big Five" vention, Robert C. Weaver stated that: civil rights organizations and FOR, which had "NAACP youth units in Wichita, Kansas [sic] earlier pioneered non-violent methods, includ­ and Oklahoma City started these demonstra­ ing the sit-ins. According to August Meier tions in 1958 and succeeded in desegregating and Elliot Rudwick, for example: scores of lunch counters in Kansas and Okla­ homa. The 'sit-in' is not a new tactic for the CORE's advocacy of direct action was by NAACP." John Morsell restated the same fact no means a denigration of the NAACP's at the conference workshops.44 valuable contribution to the civil rights In his foreword to the 1960 NAACP An­ movement. Privately, however, they rec­ nual Report, Executive Director Roy Wilkins, ognized that after the southern student made the direct linkage between the Great movement began in February, "Everywhere Plains sit-ins and the Greensboro event: under the surface there were conflicts be­ tween the NAACP and other race relations The student uprising was spontaneous. No organizations. CORE leaders were especially organization, whether new or old, or yet annoyed at the NAACP's claim-based unformed, can claim to have planned and upon [a] variety [of] store demonstrations initiated the start of the wave on February sponsored by the Oklahoma City NAACP 1, 1960. But of the four original lunch counter Youth Council in 1958-to have started sit-in students, two were members of a student the southern student sit-ins."47 92 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1996

Rudwick and Meier suggest that the NAACP, gence and sustenance of the movement were the oldest and most venerated civil rights or­ racism and the race organizations that devel­ ganization, was forced to defend its turf by oped to oppose it. new organizations that emerged in the 1960s. Racism, of course, was encountered by It may be that rivalry among the civil rights blacks in the urban environment as the effects organizations is one reason the Great Plains of the slavocracy of the rural South extended sit-ins have received so little notice. Other to the northern cities, resulting in patterns of groups focusing on their own accomplishments exclusion of blacks from both public accom­ have downplayed the linkage between the modations and private social functions. In both Great Plains sit-ins and those in the South. rural and urban environments, the freedom This perspective may have been adopted and movement has confronted racism's iniquities. perpetuated by scholars of the southern move­ Second, racism provoked various specific ment as well. responses. The primary cause of sit-ins was the In any case, the actions of northern particular discrimination found in a specific NAACP youth chapters in 1958 and 1959 were restaurant. In the planning stages of both the not "isolated" from the southern chapters of Wichita and the Oklahoma City movements, the NAACP-nor other organizations-and however, plans were not directed at only one the campaigns of the northern chapters against establishment; instead, protests against one or segregated eating establishments constituted a series of establishments became a strategy to a national model and network for change by the break down segregation in a variety of eating time the Greensboro sit-in began. The direct facilities. More important than the practices participation of NAACP youth chapter mem­ of any particular restaurant is the category of bers in the Greensboro sit-in further strength­ racism that expressed itself in discrimination ens the ties between the northern and southern in eating establishments. sit-ins. Third, there are many ways to interpret the Thus, it is not only important that the connections among events. Different actors Wichita and Oklahoma sit-ins are linked to may logically develop the same responses to each other, and to Greensboro, but as Morris similar problems. If, however, the actors know says, to thirteen other cities where sit-ins oc­ how someone else has resolved a similar prob­ curred before Greensboro. Are these actions, lem in the past, they may adopt the same style which occurred in Great Plains, border, and to deal with their own problem.49 Thus young southern states an unimportant part of the people in Greensboro may have reacted to expansion of civil rights activity, or is Morris lunch counter discrimination with a sit-in not correct in concluding that "there were impor­ because of the Wichita and Oklahoma City tant similarities in the entire chain" of sit-ins sit-ins but because of their own unwillingness from 1958 through the mid-1960s?48 The Great to tolerate discrimination. At the same time Plains sit-ins and the southern sit-ins occurred the style and rhythm of the Greensboro pro­ within the same environmental conditions and test seem to have been colored by the earlier time frame and used the same organizational sit-ins. networks to confront racial exclusion. The Finally, in order to determine in what ways northern sit-ins constitute the beginnings of sit-ins stimulated other tactics in opposition the continuum of action that resulted in the to racism, it is important to discover precisely southern movement. what precipitating factor was responsible. The two sit-ins examined in this study responded CONCLUSION to cues in the northern urban environment and became matches that helped to light the Among the environmental factors leading modern phase of the southern civil rights to the sit-ins, the most significant in the emer- movement. The Great Plains sit-ins were not THE GREAT PLAINS SIT-IN MOVEMENT 93 isolated phenomena. Each was linked to the 17. Chester Bowles, "What Negroes Can Learn vital process of the entire movement for social From Ghandi," Saturday Evening Post 230 (1 March 1958): 19-21. justice. 18. "Negroes 'sit down' in Wichita Restaurants," Facts on File, Five-Year Index, 1956-60, 18-21Au­ NOTES gust 1958; "Oklahoma 'Sit-Down.'" Facts on File, Vol. 18, No. 931, 28 August-3 September, p. 285. 1. David Levering Lewis, "The Origins and This article erroneously says that the Wichita Sit­ Causes of the Civil Rights Movement," in The Civil in took place over the period 17 -21 August. See Rights Movement in America, ed. Charles Eagles also, a local black newspaper that carried the story (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p. of the NAACP Thalheimer Award, Class I, being 7, emphasis added; Doug McAdam, Political Pro­ presented to the Wichita NAACP chapter, in part cess and the Development of Black Insurgency (Chi­ for the following: "One of the major achievements cago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 134. was the orderly protest made by the NAACP Youth 2. See, for example, Warren St. James, NAACP: Councillastluly [my emphasis] against discrimina­ Triumphs of a Pressure Group, 1909-1980 (Smith­ tion in eating facilities at Dockum Drug Store." town, New York: Exposition Press, 1980). "Wichita NAACP Cite for Award," Enlightener 2 3. "Editor Says Press Plays Down Northern (9 July 1959): 1. Discord," U.S. News & World Report 40 (23 March 19. "Drug Store Picketed by NAACP," Wichita 1956): 48,49; "Southerner Says Race Trouble in Eagle, 3 August 1958, p. C1. North Not 'Page One,'" Ibid., p. 50. 20. Matthew Schofield, "The Forgotten Sit-In," 4. "The Negro in the North," Time 67 (4 June Kansas City Star, 21 January 1991, p. 3. 1956): 81-82. 21. "Dockum Fountain Service Now Open to 5. Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists All Wichita Citizens," Enlightener, no. 9, 14 Au­ (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964) p. 26. gust 1958, p. 1. 6. Aldon Morris, "Black Southern Student Sit­ 22. Parks-Hahn to Walters (note 16 above). In Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organiza­ 23. Schofield, "Forgotten Sit-In" (note 20 tion," American Sociological Review 46 (December above). 1981): 744-67. See also his comprehensive study 24. "Dockum Fountain Service Now Open," of this subject, The Origins of the Civil Rights Move­ (note 21 above). ment: Black Communities Organizing for Change 25. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Popu­ (New York: The Free Press/Macmillan, 1984), pp. lation, 1970, Vol. 1, Parts A and B. 188-94. 26. For a comprehensive account of the Okla­ 7. McAdams, Political Process (note 1 above), homa sit-ins and NAACP politics, see, Clara Luper, p.134. Behold The Walls (Oklahoma City: Jim Wire, 1979). 8. Morris, "Black Southern Student Sit-In" 27. "Negro Drive Spreads to Enid," Daily Okla­ (note 6 above), p. 750. homan, 27 August 1958, unpaginated photocopy, 9. Ibid. Newspaper Archives, Oklahoma Historical Soci­ 10. Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Move- ety. ment (note 6 above), p. 193. 28. "Negro Group Sitting at City Drug Store," 11. See Ronald Walters, "The 'First' Civil Rights Daily Oklahoman, 20 August 1958, p. 1. Sit-In," American Visions 8 (No.1, February/March 29. "Katz Fountain Gives Negro Group Service," 1993): 20-23. Daily Oklahoman, 22 August 1958, p. 1. 12. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Popu­ 30. "Negro Youths Store Sitting in Fourth Day," lation, Vol. 1, 1970, Parts A and B. Daily Oklahoman, 23 August 1958, p. 1. 13. "Boom and a City," Newsweek 46 (12 De­ 31. "Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council cember 1955): 60. Speaks," Black Dispatch, 26 September 1958, p. 2. 14. E.e. Ford, "A Horrible Blot on the Fair Name 32. "104 Negroes Mill In Cravens Lobby," Daily of Kansas," Negro History Bulletin 19 (No.2, No­ Oklahoman, 11 August 1960, p. 1. vember 1955). 33. Kyle Ragland, "Minister Teaches Art of Non­ 15. Matthew Schofield, "The Forgotten Sit-In," Violent Protest," untitled photocopy, 10 October Kansas City Star, 21 January 1991, p. D8. 1960, Newspaper Archives, Oklahoma Historical 16. Memorandum, Carol Parks-Hahn to Ronald Society. Walters, December 1990. Carol Park's mother, the 34. "Today Is For Youth," Black Dispatch, 20 Feb­ then Mrs. Vivian Parks, served as secretary-trea­ ruary 1959, p. 5. surer of the local NAACP and was in frequent 35. "NAACP Leaders Back 'Sitdowns,'" Daily contact with the national officers. Oklahoman, 1 September 1958. 94 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1996

36. "No Sitdown For Adults," untitled photo­ 44. Gloster B. Current, "Fifty-first Annual copy, 1 September 1958, Newspaper Archives (note NAACP Convention-Accent on Youth," Crisis 33 above). 67 (No.7, August-September 1960): 407, 418. 37. "Ban Sought On Sitdowns," United Press 45. NAACP Annual Report for 1960,1961, p. 5, International, 27 August 1958. emphasis added. 38. Allen Cromley, "U.S. Turns Deaf Ear To 46. Current, "Accent on Youth" (note 44 above), City Race Crusade," Oklahoma City Times, 11 Sep­ p.414. tember 1958. 47. Meier and Rudwick quote in this statement 39. "Enid Restaurants Advised on 'Strike,'" un­ sentiment from CORE documents from the period titled photocopy, 29 August 1958, Newspaper Ar­ in question. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, chives (note 33 above). CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942- 40. Morris and Carson quoted in Schofield, "For­ 1968, New York: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. gotten Sit-In" (note 20 above). 105. 41. "Protest Drug Counter Discrimination," Cri­ 48. Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement sis 65 (No. 10, December 1958): 612. (note 6 above), p. 189. 42. "The Year of Jubilee," NAACP Annual Re­ 49. Robert C. Carson, Interaction Concepts of port for 1959,1960, pp. 36-37. Personality (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969), 43. Ibid., p. 86. p.5.