It's 1958 in America

by Cliopatria

Wabash College in Indiana, one of only three all male colleges in the United States, has restored the tradition of wearing the freshman"beanie." At Wabash, it is red and green and is called a"pot." If you can't sing the school song, the longest in the nation, they shave a scarlet letter into your head. At Duke, the beanie was Blue Devil blue and called a"dink." If you failed the"traditions exam," you had to wear a yellow dink. Thanks to Inside Higher Ed for the tip.

You thought that the sit-in movement began in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960? Tully at Stubborn Facts claims that it began in Wichita, Kansas, in 1958. Tully's both right and wrong. There were sporadic sit-ins aimed at ending racial discrimination at lunch counters and other places of public accommodation beginning at least as early May 1942 in Chicago. What's historically important about the Greensboro sit-in is that it sparked a firestorm of similar demonstrations in dozens of cities throughout the South in the spring of 1960.

Niall Ferguson,"The Road to Delusion," Telegraph, 30 October, argues that it's 1958 in America and JFK looms on the scene. I'd disagree with Ferguson only by pointing out that Dwight Eisenhower had a strong sense of foreign policy restraint. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Tully Anon - 10/31/2006

Just to be clear...I actually said it was the first successful organized civil rights sit-in. The Dockum sit-in wasn't the first sit-in by quite a few, not even the first in Wichita, as Gretchen Cassel Eick's award-winning book documents so well. I've found earlier ones in other parts of the country, and noted an Iowa sit-in (1948) in an addendum to the post. But the Iowa confrontation was won through the courts, not through the protests.

The Dockum success was what started the chain that led to Greensboro, in moving the NAACP into a more "active" mode, as compared to their traditional legislative mode. The NAACP glancingly recognized the WIchita Youth Chapter protesters at the time, then buried the episode in their archives. The later Greensboro protesters had national coverage and organizational support from the NAACP and the SCLC, which the Dockum protesters did not. But the Dockum sit-in sparked others, which put the pressure on the NAACP. And with Greensboro, the NAACP gave in and added non-violent protest to their slate.

With that support and publicity, the Greensboro sit-ins sparked a nationwide response. But theirs was not the first successful civil rights sit-in, and the NAACP has formally recognized that. Julian Bond confirmed that the Greensboro protesters took their cues from the earlier demonstraters, both those who won and those who didn't.

To state the obvious, every one of the people who protested in those days, whether in Iowa or Kansas or Alabama, was showing real courage. They faced beatings, arrests, and worse, with little hope of success. And still they kept going. They all deserve recognition for their efforts.

Oscar Chamberlain - 10/31/2006

I started 1st grade in 1958. It was a private school in the basement of an older building. (I could not go to public school because I was two months too young.)

I am pretty sure that I actually remember the moment in class, reading aloud, that reading clicked. That is, the moment when it went from decyphering word after word by rote, to reading sentences quickly and knowing what them meant.

I was not John Stuart Mill teething my brain on Thucydides. It was Dick and Jane or something similar. But it was still a glorious moment.

For morning recess we could eat snacks we brought from home. My favorite was Hostess Cream Filled Cupcakes (whose sponsorship has brought you this moment of nostalgia).