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Dockum Drug Store in Wichita, Kansas (1958)

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Dockum Drug Store in Wichita, Kansas (1958)

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The Dockum Drug Store, like many of the other popular eateries in downtown Wichita, refused to serve blacks at the counter. If they wished to purchase food in the restaurant, they had to order it at the end of the counter, and take it to go. Carol Parks Hahn, one of the planners of the sit-in, spoke of the embarrassment of being treated this way:

"You'd come in and go to the end of this counter and when you were served anything, it was in disposable containers," she said. "We never knew what it was to just sit there and have a glass and dishes." In order to try and put an end to this segregation Parks-Haun and her cousin Ron Walters decided to test the policy with a sit-in effort. Both were members of the local NAACP Youth Council, and felt equality needed to be brought to Wichita. At the time the city was segregated. As Walters put it, "It was Mississippi up north. So we tried to break it down….”

Starting July 19, 1958, Walters and Parks-Haun, with other young students, began entering the drugstore every day and filling the stools at the counter. They asked only that they be served a soft drink. They were neat and quiet, and caused no fuss. But the management continued to refuse service. The concept of peaceful resistance was fairly new at that time but would become common within a few years.

For a month the students continued to fill to drug store. A few white patrons cursed at them and questioned them, but the students held strong. Only a couple a times were they threatened. Finally on August 11 the owner relented, saying, “Serve them — I'm losing too much money.” This victory for the students became a victory for equality in Kansas. This eventually led to the Greensboro Sit-ins and many others.

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Diane Nash at the segregated counter in Tennessee

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Diane Nash at the segregated counter in Tennessee

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(Left) Claudette Colvin and (Right) Rosa Parks

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(Left) Claudette Colvin and (Right) Rosa Parks

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Montgomery Bus Company's Profit (Revenue) in the 1950s

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Montgomery Bus Company's Profit (Revenue) in the 1950s

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Even though bus segregation was illegal in 1961, many southern states were not following Federal Law. The Freedom Riders gathered and headed South in order to promote the desegregation of buses throughout the country.

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The CORE Freedom Riders - Google My Maps

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The route taken and the stops made by the CORE Freedom Ride from May 4th-17th, 1961.

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When in Google Street View, look for the building with the sculpture of children at its front corner.

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Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

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Interview with Diane Nash--Nashville, Tennessee

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Interview with Diane Nash--Nashville, Tennessee

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Please watch the video to see Colvin's efforts against Bus Segregation

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The Girl Before Rosa Parks | Claudette Colvin

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Even in Montgomery, enough African Americans owned private automobiles to ensure that people's vital transportation needs were met. Neighbors organized carpools and shared phone contacts to address unanticipated needs, such as having to take someone to the hospital. All these complex coordination tasks were achieved over the year-plus boycott. There was an important role of car ownership in the civil rights movement:

[T]he boycott might well have failed without it. Church-operated station wagons known as 'rolling churches' met people at designated pick-up points. Black-owned taxis and private cars were quickly organized into a system of alternate transportation. A downtown parking lot owned by a black man became the central command post for a fleet of cars that operated like shared taxicabs. Within weeks some three hundred vehicles were in the car pool.'

The city sought to block these efforts, but it failed, and private car ownership had a lot to do with it.

[T]he boycotters persisted, using their private automobiles to drive around Jim Crow avoiding both its buses and its downtown businesses in segregated Montgomery.

Eventually, the Montgomery Bus Boycott led to such a loss in profit, that the company finally gave in. After little over a year of boycotting, the company banned segregation on buses. The next goal was to ban bus segregation on a larger scale--state-wide and country-wide.

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On May 4, 1961, a bus carrying black and white anti-segregation activists called the Freedom Riders rolled into Alabama and was immediately attacked by members of the KKK. This event was captured in a series of jarring images by photographer Joe Postiglione. (3:26)

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The Heinous 1961 KKK Attack on the Freedom Riders

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On May 4, 1961, a bus carrying black and white anti-segregation activists called the Freedom Riders rolled into Alabama and was immediately attacked by members of the KKK. This event was captured in a series of jarring images by photographer Joe Postiglione.

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On the site, scroll down to view the photos of the sit-ins.

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Racial segregation was still legal in the United States on February 1, 1960, when four African American college students sat down at this Woolworth counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Politely asking for service at this "whites only" counter, their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their sit-in drew national attention and helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge inequality throughout the South.

In Greensboro, hundreds of students, civil rights organizations, churches, and members of the community joined in a six-month-long protest. Their commitment ultimately led to the desegregation of the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter on July 25, 1960.

Ezell A. Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond were students enrolled at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College when they began their protest.

Protests such as this led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which finally outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations.

The closing of the Greensboro Woolworth's in 1993 presented Museum curators with the opportunity to acquire this historic artifact. After extensive negotiations with Woolworth's executives and representatives of the local community, a small section of the lunch counter was donated to the Smithsonian.

More information

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Racial segregation was still legal in the United States on February 1, 1960, when four African American college students sat down at this Woolworth counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Politely asking for service at this "whites only" counter, their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats.