Black History Month Series Day 2
It’s not a lifetime ago
My father is older than this, so are my grandparents, aunts, uncles and many cousins, but 57 years ago four young Black men, college students at North Carolina A&T College, started the Woolworth Sit-In. On February 1, 1960 Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil walked into Woolworth five-and-dime to order and were denied lunch for sitting at the whites-only counter. The men stayed in the restaurant and returned the next day with 15 students. 300 students joined by the third day and the number of sit-participants quickly grew to the thousands as students began sitting in whites-only sections across the country, protesting separate-but-equal policies nationwide.
“respect my existence, or expect my resistance”
Recently the City of Seattle announced their in the beginning stages of divesting from Wells Fargo to look for a ‘socially responsible banking solution for the city.’ Thursday January 5th there was a defund DAPL mass action event at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building (the location of the end rally of the Women’s March January 21st). The mass action protested the banks investment in the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The event urged hundreds of current bank customers to close their accounts, it also featu
courtesy of Matt Remle
red a traditional Native American round-dance around the federal building. January 24th there was another NoDAPL event, an emergency rally in Westlake Park just after Trump signed the executive order to move forward the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Actions from demonstrations like these and individuals who closed their accounts led to the collective action that forced Seattle, which claims to be a welcoming sanctuary city, to divest from Wells Fargo.
“respect our existence, or expect our resistance”
This wave of individual to collective action is similar to the patterns that Black youth across the nation followed as they protested the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth five-and-dime restaurants. Black patrons felt disrespected, and dehumanized, by those policies that restricted their movement. The people were no longer able to accept those policies and were fully resisting them, challenging even the largest of restaurant food chains. Students knew that they would be met with adversity, even when they were hit by patrons with food and drinks police officers actually arrested the students for breaking Jim Crow Laws.
In 1960, my father was a citizen born under Jim Crow Laws, so were my grandparents, aunts, uncles and many cousins. 57 years ago Jim Crow Laws pushed us to the limit of protest. Now executive orders like Trump’s Flight Bans and DAPL construction are are pushing us to the limit of protest today. We are still fighting for the legitimacy of humanity in the eyes of our government, and society as a whole. This is a fight that will continue so long as our existence is not fully respected. Our existence as people of color in the United States has yet to be accepted within this culture its economic system, political system, educational system and many of it’s other institutions. Therefore so long as we continue to live within this culture, we will be resisting it, just as those who came before us have. This is one reason why we must embrace Black History Month by reflecting on those actions taken by our ancestors, especially in today’s political climate.
