>> you're watching american history tv a weekend, every weekend on c-span3. 1960, four african-american students sat down at a segregated woolworths lunch counter in greensboro, north carolina. tracy blocker, author and university of massachusetts professor of african-american studies takes the questions about protests against segregation during that time. from thelook documentary, "february 1." ♪ >> when we walked into the store, we wanted to prove that we were customers.

i brought a notebook and made sure to get receipts. we mulled around in the store, just trying to get some fix on where we work and what we were about to do. i was having some anxiety get to me. i felt my temperature increase. i could feel my sweat coming off the side of my face. i didn't have to ask joe what he was thinking. we looked at each other and of bus looked at the counter at the same time. we just started to walk toward the counter. without a single word. that is how it happened. ♪

chair nadler -- host: traci parker joins us now for a discussion about the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960. traci parker, who with the -- who were the greensboro four and why did they decide to sit down at that woolworths lunch counter? in that february day in 1960? >> thank you for having me. those were young men who were just college freshmen at north carolina state university. three of them had already met in high school. and so, already had a rapport. they met the fourth as freshman in college. in college.en they had actually been thinking about racial injustices, how to integrate, how to push the movement along for some time. but it wasn't until joseph mcneil is returning to school after christmas break in 1959

when he is refused a meal at a greyhound train terminal. he was just trying to buy a hotdog. and he gets back to campus and he is emboldened. he says, "enough is enough." so he and his four friends decide they are going to target the woolworth's and stage a sit in in greensboro, north carolina. what i find interesting is, why woolworths? woolworths was a five and dime. many people of a certain age probably still remember. it was a chain discount department store. and it was recognizable because it is a chain across the united states to people. and so, there is a way in which you can recognize it, you can see yourself in it, and if you wanted to replicate a similar movement, you could. but also, woolworths operated a very contradictory policy when

it came to african-americans. they were free to enter, browse, and purchase. however, there were not allowed to eat at lunch counters. or other eating facilities. they could not use beauty shops. they could not try on or return clothes. they were denied credit. they could be provided unequal service at the whim of a sales worker. so woolworths becomes a place that is very visible for showcasing the racial discrimination and segregation of the time, of the country. and it also for them could be one of the most ideal places to visibly dismantle this system of racial injustice. host: what was the state of segregation in 1960? we are talking six years after brown v. board of education. what was that like in the retail and shopping realm?

guest: in 1954, there is this huge -- we remember this -- this is a huge moment when brown v. board of education comes down. outlawing segregation in public schools. and it overturns the 1896 plessy versus ferguson decision that had stipulated that separate but equal was constitutional. after the brown v. board of education decision, the desegregation of schools is slow. very little is done. and then we have in december of 1955, rosa parks initiates this movement, which is the montgomery bus boycott movement. which lasts a year. but between the end of that movement in 1956 to 1960, very little had changed. and i think that there is a generation of students -- and these are generations of students that would have been

the age of emmett till when emmett till was brutally lynched. -- lynched and murdered. who had been shaped by watching the death of emmett till, watching the montgomery bus boycott, understanding that when they go into a store, the rules for them are different. and that they went to go get something to eat, the lunch counter itself was a symbol of white supremacy. it was a symbol of how the country, have the marketplace, -- how the marketplace, how the stores try to keep them in second-class citizenship. host: traci parker is our guest. an assistant professor at the university of massachusetts amherst. we are talking about the 1960's lunch counter protest in this hour of "washington journal," and being joined by our friends on american history tv. on c-span. -- on c-span3.

inviting you to join the conversation. lines split up regionally. (202) 748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. and a special line set aside for sitting participants and their family members. if you remember those days, (202) 748-8002 is the number. we would love to hear from you as we go about this hour of the washington journal.

professor parker, right did this movement become the one that gets pointed to, the greensboro protest? why is that the one that started this new round of settings? this wasn't the first round. there had been other sit-ins. why is this the one that gets pointed to? guest: there is a historical moment and there is an energy and desire for immediacy among these young people. first we are in a moment after the second world war, the economy is prosperous, african-americans have now located to urban centers, they are more waged, they are more educated. the time is right. then we have the emmett till, the montgomery bus boycott. they show us both the tragedies of the movement, right? the everyday realities for african-americans, but also the possibilities of a movement. so i think for those young students, they were tired, they were frustrated. i know that the greensboro four mentioned that they were not only motivated the death of -- motivated by the death of emmett till, by the montgomery bus boycott, but also, king had come to speak at their college in 1958. and listening to him speak about nonviolence and listening to him speak about the injustices of the world, really motivated these young men.

and they weren't alone. while they are having this conversation at their university, the women at bennett college, which is a historically black women's college, they are having similar conversations. so there is an energy, there is a conversation going on. and this seems to be the moment in which to do it. we are also at a moment whether federal government is arguably more supportive of civil rights than it had been, probably since reconstruction. those years between 1855 to 1877. host: how long did the greensboro sit-in last? how did it start spreading to other cities? guest: it lasted six months. it ended july 25. it ends after woolworths has

lost approximately $200,000, which would be equivalent to roughly $2 million today. they decide to finally integrate while the college students are on summer break. when the college students left on college break, it was high -- it was black high school students who took over the reins of this movement. the intensity continued. finally, the manager of woolworths decides he's going to have three of his black workers dressed in their sunday best and sit down at the lunch counter and eat. so ideally, by the time these college students get back, business could return to normal. host: a minute ago, you mentioned the women's college in greensboro. and the participants there. who was esther terry? guest: dr. esther terry was one

of the participants of the sit in. she helped organize the sit-in. she was a university student at bennett college. she speaks quite openly about how she was influenced, not only by her colleagues, the other women at her college, but also by her professor and by the president of the university. there was a true support system at bennett college. and a true encouragement that they participate in this movement. she participates and is arrested for her participation. but esther terry has gone on to be a leader of what historians call the second student movement, whereby students were not concerned necessarily about public accommodations, but about integrating universities. making sure there were more black students at universities. that there was more black faculty at these universities. and not only that, but that the curriculum reflects the diverse population that they are hoping these universities will have.

she eventually moves to massachusetts after earning a masters of arts degree. -- degree at the university of north carolina, chapel hill. there, she earned a phd in american literature. found and chaired the w.e.b. dubois department of african-american studies, which i am a proud faculty member of. and she helped found one of the first black studies programs in the united states. host: one of the places where esther terry spoke about her experiences in the greensboro protest was in an oral history interview with the library of congress. it is available online, but we want to show viewers clip of that interview. -- a clip of that interview. [video clip] >> i think it is very important woolworths became

-- that you don't sit down for coke. woolworths was not closed to black patrons. if you going to woolworths, you could buy what they sold. you just could not sit down and get a sandwich. it was the lunch counter, you could not sit down there to eat. i think we might have been young, because honestly, i felt proud. i don't think my mother ever felt -- maybe she felt proud, but i think that was not her main feeling. i think she was terrified. i know that now, because i have a child, he is not a child anymore, but even so i think is a -- as a mother, i would be afraid. i'm going to tell you, we were proud. i was proud to sit there.

i was very, very proud. i will tell you something else. i never, ever understood the hatred that came. it was absolutely surprising, because i did not understand why people would glare at us with such hatred. that was a little unnerving. but i was basically very proud to have done that. host: esther terry. in that library of congress, world history. traci parker, she talked about her mother being fearful of the danger she was in. could you talk about the reaction to the lunch counter sit-ins? guest: the reaction is mixed. it is interesting, when these young men first get to the lunch counter on the very first day, they encounter a white waitress who tells them that we don't serve african-americans here. that white waitress gets a little frazzled, doesn't know what to do, so she calls over a

black waitress, genevieve tends tinsdale, who quickly tells them that you are making trouble and instruct them to leave. you would assume by that statement that perhaps she was anti-protest. but i think in reality what she is is that she is scared. she is scared of what could happen to these young men, she is scared of what could possibly happen to herself. right? and so, you see that type of sentiment going on, but increasingly, as the movement goes on, these four men, this movement itself, receives immense support from surrounding -- from the surrounding community, from the black community. if they were not sitting in at the lunch counters -- i should say that this movement was not simply at the woolworths department store, it eventually spread to cress and company, another five and dime. and so increasingly, the more

students were sitting in, and for those who aren't sitting in, it may have been the parents who -- it may have been the parents, it may have been their pastors, their teachers, those folks participate in the way of an economic boycott. what they are doing is, holding their dollars from these stores until the stores make substantial change. together, it is the sit-in, it is the notoriety that is being televised and reported, and it is the economic war, that is -- the economic boycott that is damaging store profits and reputations that is central, it is integral to making change in these places. host: professor traci parker as -- is our guest this morning with the university of massachusetts amherst. the department of african-american studies. we should also note, her book, "department stores and the black freedom movement." we are taking your questions and comments about the 1960 lunch counter sit ins in this hour of

washington journal and american history tv. we have that special line for sit-in participants and family members. bonnie is on that line out of miami. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to share with you a very vivid memory from when i was 14 years old. i was living in new york city. my friends and i had gone into town to see movies and shop and we came upon a large crowd outside a very popular woolworths. they were chanting, and immediately, i signed on, joined the chance. it was 1, 2, 3, 4, don't go into woolworths store. 8, seven world works -- southern woolworths segregate. at that young age i immediately knew, as a white girl, this was

wrong. there was something wrong with our country, which unfortunately i would have to reiterate today. the certain people who started the movement back then and succeeded, of course, with the integration of the lunch counters, we need them again today. you so much. -- thank you you so much. host: thanks for the memory. traci parker? guest: i think that is a typical story. i think this is why using a woolworths is so important. a chain. you could have such a broad reach from not simply the one woolworths you are protesting against, but also a could -- it could connect to others. now you have a movement in new york city that is supportive, that is an alliance with those trying to integrate these public spaces in the south. host: what was the core, and how much involvement that national -- did national civil rights groups have in these sit-ins? guest: the core was the congress of racial equality. it was founded in chicago and

one of their major tactics was the sit-in. so they have been employing the sit in in the 1940's and 1950's. when the greensboro sit-in began, it was local naacp members. understanding they have a sense of how this should go, how you train students to take the attacks, to stay nonviolent, to stay strong, and invited them in for support. what core is also building on is a tradition of black protests in the community. which i think it's fantastic. -- is fantastic. they are drawing not only on black history, but also the labor movement. the labor movement had been using sit-ins in the 1930's not only to rail against unequal, unfair employment treatment, but also to desegregate restaurants, as well. some of them are part of the congress of industrial

-- were part of the congress of industrial organizations, the cio. host: you talk about training. could you talk about how that worked and what people who are going to sit down at these lunch counters, how they try to prepare for that experience? guest: i think nashville is arguably one of the most -- the students there were the most trained. they were quite meticulous in their preparation for the sit in. what they would do is hold classes. when i teach the sit-in movement and my civil rights class, there is a clip in the movie "the butler," where the students are in a basement and they are practicing, they are helping each other prepare. you have someone sitting in a chair and a friend of yours is going to act like they are a counterprotesters. and push the chair, spit on you, call you racial epithets.

and it is to prepare one for what could happen, right? we know that from various pictures, from film, from television news reels that what these protesters went through was, frankly, horrific. we have had students who had hot coffee thrown in their faces. they were spit on. milkshakes were thrown on them. they were violently beaten. they were arrested. they were preparing these students for the fact that it might not be physical harm or arrest. but it could end in death. host: was the whole idea to not react and continue the tradition of nonviolent protest? was the whole idea to hold that chair and stay in that seat for as long as possible? talk through the goals a little bit when it came to that training. guest: the goal was to stay nonviolent. to adhere to these nonviolent principles that gandhi and

dr. martin luther king had been touting. because -- and again, this is important what moment we are in. we are in a moment in which television is big. right? we are showing students who are dressed in their sunday best. with their schoolbooks, often times, simply trying to get their schoolwork done. staying polite, staying nonviolent, and just taking it. then what the white segregationists look like, they look barbaric. they look angry. they look as this -- something as simple as these young men and women wanting a coke or sandwich results in this brutality. it becomes a very convincing argument that african-americans are, in fact, first-class citizens. that they are respectable. that they are dignified. that they are human.

and that is the work of doing, of making this all very visible. host: february 1, the dated -- the day the greensboro lunch counter protest began. by april 1960, some 77 southern cities had lunch counter sit-ins. that is what we are talking about. looking back at those lunch counterprotests in this hour of "washington journal," also taking your calls on lines split up regionally. a special line for sit in participants and their family members. this is kathleen out of california. you are next. caller: thank you. i am 68 years old. so this is my history, as well. i found the lunch counter demonstration so moving, so powerful, so effective, so glorious. and honestly, from my perspective, i wonder about the movement. i don't see nearly as many peaceful protests any longer.

host: kathleen, why this form of protest in particular? why does it affect you so much? caller: because it was so noble. it was exactly what our society should look like. lunche to go eat regardless of their religion or color or anything. that was noble. martin luther king was noble. when i went to public school, we were trained on his words, and they were noble. i find so much nobility. i thought we were finding success. from today's perspective, i'm troubled, very troubled. host: professor parker? guest: i think the sentiments that you express are quite common. it is an interesting place that we are in. i think what students are doing now is picking up on what was unfinished of the civil rights movement. i believe that within the

tactics they are employing are very much those of the 1960's, those that the students employed, such as picket lines and sit-ins. and just really making their presence and voice heard. and there are certainly outliers who have taken a different approach. but in my view, the core sentiments, the core philosophy of king and his supporters, and even of the young men and women who participated in lunch counter sit-ins, i very much see in protests today. host: tina is out of milwaukee, wisconsin. you are next. good morning. caller: good morning and thanks for c-span. traci parker, if i wore a hat, my hat will be off to you. dashwood -- would be off to you. i appreciate your being on the program this morning. i am originally from the south, i'm from mississippi specifically.

but my contact that i want to bring up is woolworths. i'm not going into all of the details about my history, because i'm in the process of trying to write my memoirs. my experience came when i graduated from high school in jackson, mississippi, and my mom cannot afford to send me to college. my dad had left the family. and i ended up in chicago with my mother's older sister. and i ended up there, because she was the only one who could afford to send for me and bring me to a different location so i could have an opportunity to go to school. i got a job at woolworths. i thought i had died and gone to heaven. because there was no such thing as a young black woman working in the store of any type in mississippi. i was put on the candy counter,

and i worked the cashier, and everything on the candy counter was my responsibility. i felt really important. and that is what really got me going in life. ave -- he gave me that confidence. i think that is what is happening nowadays with all of the animosity toward the races and all. our children are losing confidence. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this morning. i hope everything works out for everyone. host: thank you for sharing your memory. professor parker? guest: i'm fascinated by this. i lived in chicago for many years. if you are talking about the woolworth on the south side of chicago, i have pictures at home. what you are also speaking about is the fact that in the south, the other part of discrimination, we speak often about the discrimination against black consumers, but there was also discrimination against african-american workers. at woolworths in the south, an

african-american could not hold a job as a sales worker or as a clerical worker. these were jobs reserved for women. -- historically reserved for white women. these were status jobs, jobs that gave people a sense of responsibility, they gave people a sense of confidence, as the caller mentioned. so, some sit-in movements -- and i don't have any evidence that happened with the greensboro sit-in -- but there are others such as the one in charlotte, north carolina, they not only advocated on behalf of african-american customers and the discrimination they faced, but also black workers. and to ensure black workers eventually be promoted from janitor, and cook, and maids, and elevator operators to positions such as a saleswoman at the candy counter or to work in the clothing department. those were jobs that also were

reflective of, or could, showcase african-americans' respectability, their intellect. and they were markers of a move towards their employment, and -- fair employment, and more racial equality in the marketplace. host: back on the customer side, on that experience that black customers had in 1960, as you -- can you talk more about rules regarding trying on clothes or returning close? -- returning clothes? what did they face? guest: african-americans were not permitted to try on or return clothes. there were not permitted to use the beauty shops. they were not permitted to hold credit lines. they were not permitted to use the same water fountains. many department stores, i think for some folks -- to my students, for example, it is hard for them to remember a

department store that had every amenity that you can possibly think of. in department stores, there were beauty shops that african-american women were not allowed to attend or barbershops that african-american men were not allowed to use. typically, what is going on is that while they are able to shop in places, any place white americans believed that black people could taint biologically, african-americans were not allowed to participate. host: dolores is next out of trenton, new jersey, on that line for sit-in participants. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, dolores. you are on with professor parker. caller: i just wanted to say that i went to morgan state college, it was called college at the time in 1950 nine. -- 1959. i started as a freshman there. and we demonstrated at a shopping center down the street.

we couldn't eat at the counter, as you said we could buy anything we wanted, but we could not sit down at the counter. the company was a department store. we couldn't try on the close there. -- clothes there. a fellow named clarence mitchell, whose uncle became representative from baltimore, clarence organized us. he instructed us not to interact with any of the people that would say anything to us. we had our signs that we held up. it was a wonderful experience for me. i could cry right now thinking about it. they eventually opened up that drugstore. we could sit down in the department store.

i'm so proud of you because you are saying all of the things we experienced at that time. i thank you for letting me speak. host: do you remember how long that protest lasted and how quickly -- you said it eventually changed, how long did that take? caller: i don't want to say, because i don't exactly remember. but i know that while i was there, and i was only there for a year and a half, and then i transferred to virginia union, in richmond, virginia, but it opened up while i was there. host: dolores, thanks for the call. professor parker, on that experience? guest: i'm from baltimore, so the story of morgan state students doing that work, i have benefited from that. so i must thank you for that. i am assuming you are meaning the northwood shopping center that morgan state students had

tried to integrate and were successful at doing so. those students were well organized. they planned everything very well. and that is another protest movement that not simply leveraged picketing and sit-ins, but also the use of the economic boycott. host: greensboro, north carolina is next. paul. good morning. caller: good morning to you. i just wanted to chime in and say that both my parents were graduates of north carolina and my father in particular was on the football team. and those guys staged their placement within that time period, and it was always amazing to me to hear my dad tell the stories about being on the sidewalks, and the anti-protesters spitting on them and yelling epithets.

as a kid, him telling me those stories, it was amazing. i do remember -- i ended up going to the university of north carolina chapel hill. i do remember that reading in my history book, they were talking about the football team in woolworths. i remember at the time being 19 years old and writing in the margins of the book that this was my dad. he was a part of that team. because you sell those books back, and i was hoping somewhere down the line someone would see that and be inspired. i would also say that david richmond, his son and i are good friends. we competed against each other in high school athletics. he is a great guy and a great legacy to his father. guest: that's wonderful to hear, thank you for your story. there are some wonderful images

of the football players helping to protect other protesters as they were trying to leave and would circle around, particularly female protesters, circle around them so they could safely exit the woolworths without getting injured. during the protests. i don't know whether you have time, but there are some wonderful imagery that was used in newspapers and on television. the football players were very much a part of that movement. host: the caller mentioned david richmond. ur. of the greensboro fo what eventually happens with the greensboro four? do they go on to become leaders in the wider civil rights movement? guest: it depends on how you are defining the movement. they all to some degree had a difficult time. after the protest, they are labeled radicals. in some ways, they are somewhat blackballed from local opportunities.

david richmond ended up becoming a janitor at a nursing home, refusing to leave north carolina because his family was there. his parents in particular, his children. others however left greensboro and are still around. some of them have gone on to have strong careers in military service, that would've been joseph mcneil. there is another -- i'm blanking. aziel blair jr., he moved to massachusetts. did some postgraduate schooling, eventually became a teacher, a counselor. he does oral histories. in a way, these men have cap the -- have kept the legacy alive

and have passed along their understanding of racial equality, their ideologies, onto a subsequent generation, their children. that has been, i would argue, essential to how we end up at a moment like this, when people are once again employing similar tactics to what we see in the 1960's to advance a movement that may have gotten slightly off-track by the 1980's. host: virginia, this is sue. good morning. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. i want to thank american history tv for having such great programs like this. i have a question for professor parker. when she mentioned the protest going on for a long period of time, how long did it take from when it started to it ended? and was it continuous? did they sub in people? what was the process? guest: the greensboro city began -- sit in began february 1, it

ended july 25. it is pretty much continuous. there is a two-week moratorium. this is an agreement made between protesters and the city. the idea is that they would spend that two weeks trying to negotiate a plan of action. how to integrate the stores. that fails. that is a tactic that has been used for decades, we often call it the use of persuasion. these backdoor meetings with management to create change. so that doesn't work, and as a result, the protests pick up again. when the students leave for college vacation, it is local high schoolers who decide to fill their shoes. and so, it is continuous but it ebbs and flows in different ways in the use of tactics and momentum. host: on this idea of how long it took from lunch counter sit-in to change coming in for an area, not greensboro, but

this in richmond, this is from an oral history interview from a virginia graduate who participated in some of the sit-ins in richmond. from her library of congress oral history interview. [video clip] >> i thought the world was going to change. i was so naive. the police person was very nice to me. i remember, when we were arrested, he held my hand and helped me up into the paddy wagon. i thought that was so nice. my aunt called me, she says i see you on the news being helping to the paddy wagon. -- being helped into the paddy wagon. >> you mentioned there were some students that didn't participate. that you were angry. >> i was angry with them, because they lived in virginia. when we got arrested, we went to a courthouse -- i'm sorry, went to jail. they put us in this cell and it was smelly.

i thought, not even a clean cell. the court was segregated. i thought, am i in hell? what has happened? even the courts are segregated. man came in.black a drunkard. i could smell him. and i thought why did the dredges have to come in? -- judges have to come in? it was going downhill fast. i thought, am i losing my mind? horrible. but i just thought, ok, now that we have sat in, we have these attorneys, and everything is going to be right and is not -- it's not going to be any longer. but you can change laws, but you can't change people. that comes about through your doing, individually.

host: gloria grenell, from her library of congress oral history interview. traci parker on what she remembered. guest: she's right. i think that there is a -- for some protesters, there was this notion that this would happen and they would be immediate change. but in reality, there has to be some sort of consistent pressure on merchants, on goal -- on local governments, to ensure that they held their word. while sit-ins may have ended in some places, what that meant however, was that african-american movement groups, the core, whether it was the southern christian leadership conference, the naacp, or even snic, these student nonviolent coordinating committee, these students are doing constant check ins with

businesses to ensure that they are following the new rules. to ensure that a democracy of equality is being practiced. the difficulty, too, is that you could target one store and that one store could integrate, but that doesn't mean the store next door is going to integrate. often times, businesses would say, woolworths integrated, i don't want to be next, so i will quietly integrate. it is a movement that is difficult, because it is a constant -- there is no true uniformity or an umbrella organization, even with woolworths. woolworths was a chain, and their philosophy was from their corporate headquarters, was that we follow the customs of the location in occupy. -- in which our stores occupy.

the racial politics, racial practices of a woolworths in greensboro could be drastically different than one that was in richmond, for example. host: jacqueline's next out of new orleans. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. what is your question or comment? caller: i think it is more like two statements. i have several, but i'm going to try to be as fast as i can. one, i want to mention to you that my mother, in the 1960's, she had a job in the waltons on canal street. the store name was dh holmes. it is like a dillards today. or a macy's at that time. well, my mother got a job there, and my mother worked for a very

few days, and it was a weekend and when she went to work that monday, the person that hired her says, i thought i saw you? he asked her where, and said, it couldn't have been you because the man you are walking with was a black man. my mom said that was my husband. my mother was not a white lady but she is very bright. they thought she was white. they fired her immediately. when you talk about woolworths employing black people, i understand that. and also, i wanted to say, when people did boycotts, when they stopped spending their money, that is what made those people change their minds. they didn't change their hearts, because the dollars were not coming in. it is sad you have to hurt a person in their pocket before they have a change of reaction. so, i want people to really

think about that. we should not have to boycott and not spend our money for you to change your policies. so, i just want to say thank you and these last three months, i am 55 years old, i have learned more about black history ever. the schools are not teaching it, and i hope and pray that this will get through to the united states government. we need to have black history in every school in the united states of america. it should be mandatory. thank you for your time, and god bless you. i appreciate c-span for allowing us to say what we need to say. thank you guys. host: thanks. professor parker? guest: thank you. you are right, the story about being fired after an employer learning that one is black was actually quite common. this is something that started as early as when department stores were in business. in my family, there was a story where there is a great aunt who

was very fair and had gotten a job in downtown baltimore. but it was well known that when her daughter might see her on the street, her daughter could not speak to her, because if her employer found out she was in fact a black woman, she would be fired. so that is actually quite common. it is so disappointing. and with regards to businesses and governments making change, usually, that change comes from because their pockets are hurt, that is the truth of the matter. very few times are you seeing businesses change because of humanitarian efforts. even as early as the 1940's, 1950's, the quakers, the american friends service committee, the quaker organization, was going around throughout the country in large cities doing surveys of customers as they were walking out the store.

they would do these surveys with white customers and ask, to be -- would you be bothered if a black person was your salesperson when you made your purchase? and overwhelmingly, these white customers would say, i wouldn't be bothered. i'm really only in there for the goods i need. i would tolerate it, it would be fine. i wouldn't find a new store to shop in. and still, managers, business owners were so fearful of alienating their desired clientele, the white and middle upper classes, that they still refused to do so. host: about 15 minutes left with professor traci parker, author of "department stores and the black freedom movement." working in the department of afro-american studies at the university of massachusetts amherst. considering your post at the university, i wonder your thoughts on the caller's

comment about schools not teaching black history? guest: the problem is we -- the problem, to my mind, is that teaching history in middle school and high schools is a political project. what we are teaching students is to be citizens in the ways in which larger forces want us to understand citizenship. and as a result, what african-american students learn is that they are second-class citizens. it is not until they get to colleges, universities -- again, this is so important why we need african-american studies and ethnic studies departments, women and gender and sexuality departments. because i hear overwhelmingly, when i teach my class on the history of the civil rights movement or the history of black women, that students are craving for this information. this is statements made by not only black students, but white students, by my latino and asian

students, that they are craving to know this history and they are able to see how important this history is for this moment. i'm teaching an online civil rights course right now, and we were having a discussion, and the connections the students are making between what happened in the sit-in movement or what happened in birmingham in 1963 and making these parallels to what is going on right now -- in all honesty, a lot of the students were so in awe. they were impressed, but they were also encouraged and motivated to take part and do something to change the racial politics of our country. host: if that craving is there, why can't schools in this country bring what you are talking about down to the high school level? guest: that's a good question. i don't work with high schoolers, i don't know.

i suspect that there is probably a variety of reasons. this is probably issues of funding, this is probably the issue of feeling like you are teaching to a test system. and three is also a blatant desire not to teach it. but it would be -- i do think that if students have a stronger understanding about where everyone in this country has come from, to understand the diverse backgrounds, to understand the influence of slavery and the legacy of slavery in this country, to understand the history of black protests in this country, and the influence of lack protests -- influence of black protests other movements, such as the lgbtqia movement, such as the women's movement, that native americans had their own freedom movement and continue to have one, that this is important for

understanding who we are as citizens. host: brooklyn, new york. this is ellen. waiting on the line for sit in participants. good morning. caller: good morning. professor parker mentioned she was active in baltimore. that brought back a memory to me. i was very active in a group from goucher college. we were a group of white students, combined with the group of students from oregon state. and we were in the civic interest group and did some sit-ins in baltimore. under very hostile conditions. so i wanted to add that to the mix here, and i believe it was clarence mitchell who, i don't know if that name is familiar to you, i think he later went on and become a politician. two things remain with me.

and when i was on these picket lines, a white man came up to me -- and i am white -- and he said to me with great hatred, i'd rather see my daughter dead than on a picket line. i think up to that point, i hadn't realized the emotional dimension of what we were attempting. and the second thing was, we were arrested. we were put into a police van and taken for a wild and bumpy ride through baltimore. and when the freddie gray case came up, that rang a bell. that they had done the same thing. they had speeded up and knocked him around, because the same thing happened to us. and this was in 1960. i just wanted to share this. host: thanks for the call and the memories. professor parker? guest: thank you for that comment.

what you are also pointing out is the interracial nature of these protests. i mentioned it was a youth movement, i also mentioned it was intergenerational with, if you think about it is the -- about it, it is the generation of emmett till, but it is also his mother's generation. but it is also the fact that the sit-ins had white supporters. many of whom were white college students. these were white members of religious communities. many times, you had white college students coming down from the north. increasingly, after 1960. to help out with voter registration, to help out with desegregation, to help out with the education of african-american southerners. it is quite important. and i love this story, so i'm going to be really brief, but when the four men sat down at the lunch counter on that very

first day, and they are getting these looks from onlookers of white people sitting at the counter, and they are fearful that they might be physically harmed or killed, an elderly white woman came up to one of them and put her arm on his shoulder and said that she was so proud of them and that she had wished something like this had been done 10 years prior. and so, the amount of white support comes in a variety of ways. it is not simply white college students who come in the case of greensboro. they are coming from the women's college at unc, or in the case of jackson, the jackson sit-in of 1963, reverend white king, a -- reverend ed king, a white college student participated and sat alongside moody. during the jackson sit in. white support was coming from a variety of places.

in the montgomery bus boycott, for example, you had white female employers driving their domestics to work, because their black domestic was not taking the bus out of protest. the interracial nature of this movement in the 1960's is very important. and i think it is really important to the movement that is going on right now. the diversity of the protesters out there. -- out there fighting. host: i did want to ask you what happened to that woolworths and that lunch counter. what exists in greensboro today there? guest: woolworths has closed down throughout the country, but that woolworths is now a museum. you can go, and it's fabulous. it is very multimedia. there are some actors of some

sort who detail what happened at the lunch counter sit-ins. i haven't been in some time, but it is definitely worth seeing. i will say, a couple of the lunch counter stools are in the smithsonian. the black history museum in washington, d.c., if you are interested in seeing that. host: just down the street from our studio here. time for one or two more calls. chester on that line for sit-in participants. out of kansas city. good morning. caller: kansas city, kansas. good morning. in june, 1960, there were four females and two males who participated in a sit-in. not at a woolworths, but at a restaurant. the same year, when the naacp sent out a call to protest what they were doing, we are in free

kansas, and that is where we got involved. it really touched on the civil rights movement in kansas city, kansas. i might add that, in 1952, i'm 87 years old, i was on my way to korea. i had been sent to korea. on my way. and in the kansas city, kansas, which was as segregated as alabama, or greensboro, north carolina, i went to a store which was a store similar to woolworths. they had a counter, but african-americans had to sit in the back. i couldt in in 1952, dine korea, i could dine in kansas city, kansas. but in kansas city, kansas, woolworths, the branch refused to picket in front of woolworths, which really touched off the civil rights movement.

kansas city became the laughingstock as far as the naacp was concerned. -- the laughingstock of america as far as the naacp was concerned. some of the people that sat on the sidelines got involved. we started working on the department stores, because they would not hire blacks. i was chair of the committee. the committee had documented everything, but even today, persons in kansas city, kansas do not like to be reminded, because there was only a handful of us got involved here. my sister was named francis haywood, who lived in california, and is still very active in the civil rights movement. host: tracy parker? make sure igoing to got this correctly because my earpiece is going out a little

bit. from what i understand, there was the local naacp reluctant to participate in a protest movement against walworth -- against woolworth. that is not surprising. and i believe he was talking about the early 1950's, is that correct? host: yes. agenda was tocp's take a more litigation approach, hence why there is a brown v. board of education case and several other cases around the integration of schools. were reluctant to do anything that would evoke direct confrontation. they sort of jump on the bandwagon or become more comfortable with it by the time we get to the student sit in movement because in part they see how effective it is. even king himself articulated the effectiveness of doing sit ins and direct confrontation, as

long as it was nonviolent. but at that point in the 1950's, and in the midst of the cold war and the naacp felt as though they did not want to make any missteps whereby they might be labeled a communist, but their real goal at that point in time, their major goal, was to approach civil rights through the courts. host: about a minute and a half left in the program. i wanted to give it to you, to answer the question of the legacy of the sit ins of 1960. guest: we think about 1960, but the sit ins continued well beyond the 1960's. they were employed in different ways. toget -- by the time you get somewhere around the mid to late 60's in washington dc and maryland, places in the upper north, we see sit ins used in conjunction with economic

boycotts to racially integrate workplaces, to ensure that african americans can be hired in skills positions. i feel strongly that the sit in helps facilitate the creation and the implementation of the civil rights act of 1964. title two of which outlaws discrimination of public accommodations. despite these major legal moments, brown versus board of education being one of them, public accommodations are one of the most integrated places in america today. schools and housing remain quite segregated. a lot can be said about the success and longevity of that success when it comes to public accommodations and the efforts of the sit inners. wet: tracy parker,

appreciate your time this morning. guest: thank you. >> american history tv is on social media. follow us @cspanhistory. and oral history interview with esther terry, who talks about participating in the 1960 lunch counter set in protest while a student at bennett college in greensboro, north carolina. decades later, she served as president of bennett college. this interview is part of an oral history project on the civil rights movement initiated by congress in 2009. conducted by the smithsonian museum, the american folklife center at the library of congress, and the oral history center at the university of north carolina chapel hill.