Locals recall 1963 civil rights sit-in at WR lunch counter - Houston &
Peach
“You knew that something was going to happen, you just didn’t know
what,” said Daron Lee Sr., one of the 17. ”But you were willing to take
the chance.”
Though advocates say the turmoil sometimes associated with the civil
rights movement was uncommon in Warner Robins, the area adhered to
segregation laws. It was a time when facilities were labeled “Colored”
and “White.” Jim Crow laws legally separated schools, bathrooms,
faucets, bus seating and even jail cells.
Dr. Dawn Herd-Clark, a professor at Fort Valley State University, which
became a university in 1996, said black people eventually decided it was
time to desegregate, but not all black people joined in because such
rebellion could bring financial or bodily harm.
“Most black folks did not participate (in the civil rights movement),”
she said. “It takes someone very courageous to do that.”
On October 19, 1963 -- less than a year before President Lyndon Johnson
signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, which outlawed
discrimination on the basis of race or sex -- local students decided it
was their turn to join the national stand against separate but unequal
lifestyles.
“There were a lot of demonstrations then, around the nation,” Lee said.
“We figured it was time to do things.”
Joining the fight
The students were youth members of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, one of the organizations that spearheaded
the civil rights movement.
The Warner Robins chapter received its charter only a month before
then-chapter President Sammy Smith and the students devised a plan to
fully integrate Liggett’s Drug Store. Black people could buy anything in
the store but were not allowed to eat at the lunch counter, a staple in
drug stores at the time.
“We felt we had the right to sit down and eat, even though segregation
did not permit that,” Lee said.
The stage for what those involved believe to be the first sit-in in
Warner Robins was located in the back corner of Williams Plaza Shopping
Center, near the intersection of Watson Boulevard and Houston Road.
The cast consisted of 17 students at Fort Valley State College, as FVSU
was known then, the Warner Robins Police Department and an unknowing
store manager. The backdrop included civil rights activists marching
along Watson Boulevard.
“None of the adults went in because we knew we were going to need
someone to bond us out,” said Margaret Sanks-Hobes, who was 17 at the
time and hadn’t told her father of the plan.
The students drove to the parking lot. Unsure of what to expect, they
split into groups of four and five since the lunch counter had limited
seating.
“We didn’t want them to have any reason to say they couldn’t serve us,”
Sanks-Hobes said. “They had room.”
The first group included Lee, who was the youth president of the NAACP
chapter, and Sanks-Hobes, who was the youth vice president. They walked
into the drugstore, sat down and ordered.
“We all knew we were going to jail,” Lee said. “We knew that we probably
would not get served.”
With their backs to the door and whatever was to come, the group
demanded their lunch order.
“(Warner Robins police officers) testified the demonstrators argued with
a waitress and the manager of the store and insisted they wanted to be
served,” reads a Nov. 7, 1963, article in The Telegraph about the first
court hearing for the 17.
“The officers said the manager asked the sit-iners to leave and then the
officers asked them to leave before they were placed under arrest.”
For about 20 minutes, each group followed the same routine. They
entered, ordered, refused to leave and were arrested.
According to the 1963 article, manager Robert Worth testified that “no
one said anything out of place.”
“We had been trained to be non-violent,” Sanks-Hobes said.
Of course, that didn’t stop 19-year-old Lee from pushing the limits. He
put a quarter in the jukebox while “waiting” to be served.
After 17 students were arrested, the owners shut down the drug store for
the day. According to Sanks-Hobes, at least 20 more students were
prepared to sit-in.
Some of the 17 recently recalled the episode with the clarity of
yesterday.
Sanks-Hobes said the group was put on an “ol’ raggedy bus” to the city
jail, where they spent the rest of the day. The charge was trespassing
and disorderly conduct, according to the 1963 article.
“The store is not integrated,” Worth plainly said at the November 1963
hearing.
Lee said the students were eventually transferred “to the big jail in
Perry.” There, he said, they were served pork and beans, and cornbread,
but none touched the cold beans and days-old bread.
“But, the next morning, people were so hungry that we began to eat it,”
Lee said with a chuckle.
After two days, they were released.
“They gave us a real meal” at Springfield Baptist Church, Lee said. The
church remains on Alberta Road today.
Their release wasn’t the end of their defiance. At one of their court
hearings, Sanks-Hobes rebelled against the separate water fountain
rules.
“I said, ‘The only colored water I drink is sweet, and this water ain’t
sweet. So, I’m going to drink the white water,’” Sanks-Hobes said.
A mini-brawl ensued. When a white officer grabbed one of the students,
Lee’s mother “started beating him with her pocketbook.”
“Everybody was fighting in the lobby,” Lee said.
After months of hearings, the charges were eventually dismissed.
Warner Robins calmer than most
The demonstration remains a real-life illustration of the tensions that
preceded integration. Separate facilities for white and “colored” people
were legal, but the bathrooms, water fountains and services for blacks
were typically substandard.
Professor Herd-Clark said it is a common misconception that the civil
rights movement was confined to the early 1960s.
“The civil rights movement did not happen overnight. It’s really been
going on since slavery,” she said.
The key factors that pushed the movement to a head in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, Clark-Herd said, were World War II, groundbreaking U.S.
Supreme Court rulings on desegregation, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X spoke out, and groups
that included the Freedom Riders and the NAACP organized demonstrations
around the nation. Histories of the early 1960s fight for equal rights
are filled with stories and images of demonstrators being beaten,
lynched, pummelled by firehoses and disappearing without a trace.
However, local civil rights advocate Ada Lee, Daron Lee Sr.’s mother,
said those horrific pictures, stories and images were not a reality in
Warner Robins.
“We were blessed in that way,” said Lee, who says she participated in
every march locally. “We never was beat up or anything for picketing and
demonstrating.”
Lee said she joined the ranks of local activists in desegregating Warner
Robins because it was her chance to finally do something about the tears
her daughter shed years after being called a racial slur.
“There was nothing I could do about it then, but I said that when the
time came ... it inspired me to do all that I could do to make Warner
Robins better for African-Americans,” she said.
The activists demanded white establishments give black people jobs at
gas stations and supermarkets and to be allowed to use “white”
facilities. But for all the demands, none of the protesters were beaten,
she said.
Newspaper articles from 1963 and 1964 mirror Lee’s recollection. Stories
about missing persons and out-of-control demonstrations that were
written for local publications were set in cities in other parts of the
state and nation.
A September 1963 story described a Department of Defense directive that
prohibited Robins Air Force Base units from participating in segregated
activities or visiting segregated establishments. Though city leaders
allowed business owners to continue operating as they pleased, they
urged a group in October 1963 to “realize where our economy comes from”
-- Robins Air Force Base.
Times have changed, but still not perfect
The actions of civil rights advocates permitted black and white children
to grow up together. Schools are integrated. Water fountains are for
everyone. President Barack Obama, who is of mixed race, is known as the
first black president.
Local activists said all of those things prove America has progressed by
leaps and bounds since the fight for equality decades ago but there is
room for improvement, they said.
It could be argued that the black community has stepped backwards in
some ways since the 1960s, said Sanks-Hobes and Alberta Fuller, who was
also one of the 17. Sanks-Hobes said government assistance has created a
security blanket some are unwilling to shake.
“All of those free handouts have pushed us back some,” she said. “It’s
embarrassing to my race.”
Smith, the NAACP president who supported the 17 and helped lead the
local movement, said that he and his fellow activists worked to get five
black officers -- including Frank Jones, who participated in the sit-in
-- hired at the Warner Robins Police Department.
“And, we still have about five on the department now,” Smith said.
Meanwhile, according to Daron Lee Sr., there is a section of the black
community that believes no one should “rock the boat.” It prevents some
from fighting as hard as in the past, he said.
He was willing to sacrifice graduating on time, he said. Court hearings
after the sit-in cut into class time, so he had to drop out for a year.
It was a sacrifice that even his mother says was worth it.
“It took all of that to accomplish what we were trying to do.”
To contact writer Christina M. Wright, call 256-9685.
--
http://www.macon.com/2011/02/13/1449640/warner-robins-civil-rights-sit.html
Via InstaFetch
Peach
“You knew that something was going to happen, you just didn’t know
what,” said Daron Lee Sr., one of the 17. ”But you were willing to take
the chance.”
Though advocates say the turmoil sometimes associated with the civil
rights movement was uncommon in Warner Robins, the area adhered to
segregation laws. It was a time when facilities were labeled “Colored”
and “White.” Jim Crow laws legally separated schools, bathrooms,
faucets, bus seating and even jail cells.
Dr. Dawn Herd-Clark, a professor at Fort Valley State University, which
became a university in 1996, said black people eventually decided it was
time to desegregate, but not all black people joined in because such
rebellion could bring financial or bodily harm.
“Most black folks did not participate (in the civil rights movement),”
she said. “It takes someone very courageous to do that.”
On October 19, 1963 -- less than a year before President Lyndon Johnson
signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, which outlawed
discrimination on the basis of race or sex -- local students decided it
was their turn to join the national stand against separate but unequal
lifestyles.
“There were a lot of demonstrations then, around the nation,” Lee said.
“We figured it was time to do things.”
Joining the fight
The students were youth members of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, one of the organizations that spearheaded
the civil rights movement.
The Warner Robins chapter received its charter only a month before
then-chapter President Sammy Smith and the students devised a plan to
fully integrate Liggett’s Drug Store. Black people could buy anything in
the store but were not allowed to eat at the lunch counter, a staple in
drug stores at the time.
“We felt we had the right to sit down and eat, even though segregation
did not permit that,” Lee said.
The stage for what those involved believe to be the first sit-in in
Warner Robins was located in the back corner of Williams Plaza Shopping
Center, near the intersection of Watson Boulevard and Houston Road.
The cast consisted of 17 students at Fort Valley State College, as FVSU
was known then, the Warner Robins Police Department and an unknowing
store manager. The backdrop included civil rights activists marching
along Watson Boulevard.
“None of the adults went in because we knew we were going to need
someone to bond us out,” said Margaret Sanks-Hobes, who was 17 at the
time and hadn’t told her father of the plan.
The students drove to the parking lot. Unsure of what to expect, they
split into groups of four and five since the lunch counter had limited
seating.
“We didn’t want them to have any reason to say they couldn’t serve us,”
Sanks-Hobes said. “They had room.”
The first group included Lee, who was the youth president of the NAACP
chapter, and Sanks-Hobes, who was the youth vice president. They walked
into the drugstore, sat down and ordered.
“We all knew we were going to jail,” Lee said. “We knew that we probably
would not get served.”
With their backs to the door and whatever was to come, the group
demanded their lunch order.
“(Warner Robins police officers) testified the demonstrators argued with
a waitress and the manager of the store and insisted they wanted to be
served,” reads a Nov. 7, 1963, article in The Telegraph about the first
court hearing for the 17.
“The officers said the manager asked the sit-iners to leave and then the
officers asked them to leave before they were placed under arrest.”
For about 20 minutes, each group followed the same routine. They
entered, ordered, refused to leave and were arrested.
According to the 1963 article, manager Robert Worth testified that “no
one said anything out of place.”
“We had been trained to be non-violent,” Sanks-Hobes said.
Of course, that didn’t stop 19-year-old Lee from pushing the limits. He
put a quarter in the jukebox while “waiting” to be served.
After 17 students were arrested, the owners shut down the drug store for
the day. According to Sanks-Hobes, at least 20 more students were
prepared to sit-in.
Some of the 17 recently recalled the episode with the clarity of
yesterday.
Sanks-Hobes said the group was put on an “ol’ raggedy bus” to the city
jail, where they spent the rest of the day. The charge was trespassing
and disorderly conduct, according to the 1963 article.
“The store is not integrated,” Worth plainly said at the November 1963
hearing.
Lee said the students were eventually transferred “to the big jail in
Perry.” There, he said, they were served pork and beans, and cornbread,
but none touched the cold beans and days-old bread.
“But, the next morning, people were so hungry that we began to eat it,”
Lee said with a chuckle.
After two days, they were released.
“They gave us a real meal” at Springfield Baptist Church, Lee said. The
church remains on Alberta Road today.
Their release wasn’t the end of their defiance. At one of their court
hearings, Sanks-Hobes rebelled against the separate water fountain
rules.
“I said, ‘The only colored water I drink is sweet, and this water ain’t
sweet. So, I’m going to drink the white water,’” Sanks-Hobes said.
A mini-brawl ensued. When a white officer grabbed one of the students,
Lee’s mother “started beating him with her pocketbook.”
“Everybody was fighting in the lobby,” Lee said.
After months of hearings, the charges were eventually dismissed.
Warner Robins calmer than most
The demonstration remains a real-life illustration of the tensions that
preceded integration. Separate facilities for white and “colored” people
were legal, but the bathrooms, water fountains and services for blacks
were typically substandard.
Professor Herd-Clark said it is a common misconception that the civil
rights movement was confined to the early 1960s.
“The civil rights movement did not happen overnight. It’s really been
going on since slavery,” she said.
The key factors that pushed the movement to a head in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, Clark-Herd said, were World War II, groundbreaking U.S.
Supreme Court rulings on desegregation, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X spoke out, and groups
that included the Freedom Riders and the NAACP organized demonstrations
around the nation. Histories of the early 1960s fight for equal rights
are filled with stories and images of demonstrators being beaten,
lynched, pummelled by firehoses and disappearing without a trace.
However, local civil rights advocate Ada Lee, Daron Lee Sr.’s mother,
said those horrific pictures, stories and images were not a reality in
Warner Robins.
“We were blessed in that way,” said Lee, who says she participated in
every march locally. “We never was beat up or anything for picketing and
demonstrating.”
Lee said she joined the ranks of local activists in desegregating Warner
Robins because it was her chance to finally do something about the tears
her daughter shed years after being called a racial slur.
“There was nothing I could do about it then, but I said that when the
time came ... it inspired me to do all that I could do to make Warner
Robins better for African-Americans,” she said.
The activists demanded white establishments give black people jobs at
gas stations and supermarkets and to be allowed to use “white”
facilities. But for all the demands, none of the protesters were beaten,
she said.
Newspaper articles from 1963 and 1964 mirror Lee’s recollection. Stories
about missing persons and out-of-control demonstrations that were
written for local publications were set in cities in other parts of the
state and nation.
A September 1963 story described a Department of Defense directive that
prohibited Robins Air Force Base units from participating in segregated
activities or visiting segregated establishments. Though city leaders
allowed business owners to continue operating as they pleased, they
urged a group in October 1963 to “realize where our economy comes from”
-- Robins Air Force Base.
Times have changed, but still not perfect
The actions of civil rights advocates permitted black and white children
to grow up together. Schools are integrated. Water fountains are for
everyone. President Barack Obama, who is of mixed race, is known as the
first black president.
Local activists said all of those things prove America has progressed by
leaps and bounds since the fight for equality decades ago but there is
room for improvement, they said.
It could be argued that the black community has stepped backwards in
some ways since the 1960s, said Sanks-Hobes and Alberta Fuller, who was
also one of the 17. Sanks-Hobes said government assistance has created a
security blanket some are unwilling to shake.
“All of those free handouts have pushed us back some,” she said. “It’s
embarrassing to my race.”
Smith, the NAACP president who supported the 17 and helped lead the
local movement, said that he and his fellow activists worked to get five
black officers -- including Frank Jones, who participated in the sit-in
-- hired at the Warner Robins Police Department.
“And, we still have about five on the department now,” Smith said.
Meanwhile, according to Daron Lee Sr., there is a section of the black
community that believes no one should “rock the boat.” It prevents some
from fighting as hard as in the past, he said.
He was willing to sacrifice graduating on time, he said. Court hearings
after the sit-in cut into class time, so he had to drop out for a year.
It was a sacrifice that even his mother says was worth it.
“It took all of that to accomplish what we were trying to do.”
To contact writer Christina M. Wright, call 256-9685.
--
http://www.macon.com/2011/02/13/1449640/warner-robins-civil-rights-sit.html
Via InstaFetch
