Sit Down to Take a Stand
The Museum has little content relating to the diverse history of our mission focus. While this is unintentional, we have the desire and responsibility to accurately reflect history, not just nostalgia, even if addressing topics that might be uncomfortable for some.
For Black Americans soda fountains were not welcoming places. Before the Civil Rights Movement, many restaurants were segregated, forcing Black Americans to eat in separate spaces or not receive service at all. The passive resistance of four college students at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina started a youth-led sit-in movement across the South. Protesters endured verbal and physical abuse while peacefully fighting for equal rights.
In Waco, Black community leaders marched, picketed, and conducted sit-ins. By demonstrating, protesters disrupted business, causing lunch counters to lose money. Locally, Black community leaders and white business owners organized a quiet integration of lunch counters in the winter of 1961. The community involvement that came from these sit-ins gave the Civil Rights Movement the social backing it needed, taking the first steps for legal integration laws culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This exhibition was made possible by:
The Rapoport Foundation
The Summerlee Foundation
With additional support from:
TFNB Your Bank For Life
Prophecy Media Group
The Institute for Oral History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas
Special thanks to our advisory committee:
Anthony Betters, Sr.
Dexter Hall
Gary Myles
Stephen Sloan
Additional thanks to:
Central Texas African-American Heritage Association
Lesson Plans
Grades K-2
Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-12
Oral History Resources for Sit-Ins
Oral history preserves the stories of our community members who helped create the fabric of history and whose lives, in turn, were shaped by the people, places, events, and ideas of their day. Using these recorded interviews, researchers can then learn about historically interesting moments in time.