Eyes on the Prize, Episode 3: Ain’t Scared of Your Jails

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Eyes on the Prize
Episode 3
AIN’T SCARED OF YOUR JAILS (1960–1961)

By 1960, a new generation of black activists joined the civil rights struggle: students who had grown up after the Brown v. Board of Educationn ruling (see Episode 2). They emerged on the scene with a fresh sense of possibility and determination. On February 1, 1960, four black students
made history by sitting down at a “whites only” lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s store. Soon afterward students began to challenge segregation in other college towns
throughout the South.

In their search for inspiration, activists in Nashville, Tennessee turned to Amos and Isaiah, the biblical “social justice” prophets, studied Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence, and adopted American philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s writings on civil disobedience. Led by Reverend James Lawson, who studied nonviolence during his years in India, they prepared for
confrontations with segregationists through workshops on civil disobedience and nonviolent action. These lessons were quickly applied as hundreds of well-dressed black and white students converged on segregated lunch counters and insisted on being served regardless of where they
sat. Almost immediately and throughout the lunch counter campaign, angry mobs attacked the student protesters, who, despite taunts, physical intimidation, and arrest, refrained from fighting back.

To further dramatize the injustice of segregation, students refused bail and crowded Nashville’s jails to capacity.

Prompted by the protests, Nashville’s mayor, Ben West, called for law and order as students organized a boycott of the city’s downtown shops and drew unprecedented attention from the national
media. The boycott was followed by a dramatic march on city hall, where students challenged West to publicly acknowledge the immorality of segregation and lift Nashville’s segregation laws. Struck by
the students’ actions and moral determination, the mayor relented. The victory in Nashville inspired student leaders to form a new organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Devoted to the principles of nonviolence, SNCC became a leading force in the campaign against segregation in the South and spurred massive support for the civil rights movement.