The sit-ins : protest and legal change in the civil rights era / Christopher W. Schmidt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schmidt, Christopher W., author.

Series:

Chicago series in law and society.

Chicago Series in Law and Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century.

African Americans.

African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States--History--20th century.

Civil rights demonstrations--United States--History--20th century.

Civil rights demonstrations.

Civil rights demonstrations--Southern States--History--20th century.

African Americans--History--1877-1964.

Southern States--Race relations.

Southern States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

On February 1, 1960, four African American college students entered the Woolworth department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat down at the lunch counter. This lunch counter, like most in the American South, refused to serve black customers. The four students remained in their seats until the store closed. In the following days, they returned, joined by growing numbers of fellow students. These "sit-in" demonstrations soon spread to other southern cities, drawing in thousands of students and coalescing into a protest movement that would transform the struggle for racial equality. The Sit-Ins tells the story of the student lunch counter protests and the national debate they sparked over the meaning of the constitutional right of all Americans to equal protection of the law. Christopher W. Schmidt describes how behind the now-iconic scenes of African American college students sitting in quiet defiance at "whites only" lunch counters lies a series of underappreciated legal dilemmas-about the meaning of the Constitution, the capacity of legal institutions to remedy different forms of injustice, and the relationship between legal reform and social change. The students' actions initiated a national conversation over whether the Constitution's equal protection clause extended to the activities of private businesses that served the general public. The courts, the traditional focal point for accounts of constitutional disputes, played an important but ultimately secondary role in this story. The great victory of the sit-in movement came not in the Supreme Court, but in Congress, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, landmark legislation that recognized the right African American students had claimed for themselves four years earlier. The Sit-Ins invites a broader understanding of how Americans contest and construct the meaning of their Constitution.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. The Students

2. The Lawyers

3. The Sympathizers

4. The Opponents

5. The Justices

6. The Lawmakers

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Notes

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780226522586

022652258X

OCLC:

1029200667