The Montgomery boycott showed what organized, nonviolent protest could do. In the early 1960s a new generation, many of them college students, carried it across the South.
Key idea
Students sat in at a Greensboro lunch counter (1960) and founded SNCC; Freedom Riders tested bus integration (1961); after the Birmingham campaign (1963) and King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," about 250,000 people joined the March on Washington (August 28, 1963).
| Campaign | When | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Greensboro sit-in | February 1, 1960 | Four students from North Carolina A&T sat at a whites-only Woolworth's counter; sit-ins spread to dozens of cities |
| SNCC founded | April 1960 | Students met at Shaw University with guidance from Ella Baker |
| Freedom Rides | May 1961 | CORE riders tested a Supreme Court ruling against segregated bus terminals; a bus was burned near Anniston and riders beaten in Birmingham; that fall the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in terminals |
| Birmingham campaign | April–May 1963 | Marches and sit-ins; police used dogs and fire hoses on young marchers, seen on national television |
| March on Washington | August 28, 1963 | About 250,000 marched for jobs and freedom; King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech |
Why it works
Nonviolent protest was a strategy, not just a moral choice. Protesters were trained, in workshops such as James Lawson's in Nashville, to sit quietly, dress well and not strike back when cursed, burned with cigarettes or beaten. That discipline exposed the violence of segregation to the nation, and to the world in the middle of the Cold War, and pushed the federal government to act. In his letter from the Birmingham jail (April 16, 1963), King answered eight white clergymen who had called the protests unwise and untimely. He argued that people have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws and that, for Black Americans, being told to wait had almost always meant never. That fall a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham killed four girls.
Work it through
Worked example: Tactic and target
Match each tactic to what it targeted: sit-in; Freedom Ride; march.
- Sit-in: segregated lunch counters and stores, by occupying seats.
- Freedom Ride: segregated interstate buses and terminals, by riding them.
- March: public opinion and Congress, by gathering in great numbers.
Answer: Sit-ins targeted stores, Freedom Rides targeted travel, marches targeted the nation and its laws.
Common mistake
Many students think nonviolent protest meant passive protest. It was organized, trained and risky: protesters planned carefully, practiced not striking back, and faced arrests, beatings and bombings. The point was to act, and to make injustice visible.