Andrea Pinkney - Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down

Copyright 2010 by Andrea Davis Pinkney Illustrations copyright 2010 by Brian Pinkney

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First eBook Edition: February 2010

ISBN: 978-0-316-08665-3

To Rebecca ShermanA. D. P. & B. P.

We must... meet hate with love.

These were Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s words that got them started.

Four hungry friends. Eager to eat.

Each took a seat at the Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

David, Joseph, Franklin, and Ezell sat quiet and still.

With hearts full of hope.

With Dr. Kings words strong and close.

They were college students with a plan.

It was February 1, 1960.

They didnt need menus.

Their order was simple.

A doughnut and coffee,

with cream on the side.

Woolworths was busy,

so the friends waited.

Patiently. Silently.

Without a fuss.

They were the only black kids at the counter.

David, Joseph, Franklin, and Ezell sat while everyone else got served.

At first, they were treated like the hole in a doughnut invisible.

Others tried to ignore them.

The waitress watched and refused them.

This was a sign of the times:

WHITES ONLY.

This was the laws recipe for segregation.

Its instructions were easy to follow:

Do not combine white people with black people.

Segregation was a bitter mix.

Now it was the friends turn to ignore and refuse.

They ignored the law, and refused to leave until they were served.

Those kids had a recipe, too.

A new brew called integration.

It was just as simple:

Combine black with white to make sweet justice

For them, integration was better than any chefs special.

Integration was finer than homemade cake.

Integration was a recipe that would take time.

So David, Joseph, Franklin, and Ezell sat quiet and still.

With hearts full of hope.

With Dr. Kings words strong and close:

Be loving enough to absorb evil.

They sat straight and proud.

And waited. And wanted.

A doughnut and coffee, with cream on the side.

After sitting and waiting and wanting, a police officer came.

But the four friends wouldnt leave.

The police officer didnt know what to do.

The students were doing nothing wrong.

No crime in sitting.

No harm in being quiet.

No danger in looking hungry.

The officer left the lunch counter without doing anything.

The Woolworths man turned off the lights.

He announced, Woolworths is closed.

So the customers left,

including the four friends,

who went home to dinner,

where they were served first.

News had already spread about the sit-in.

David, Joseph, Franklin, and Ezell got their names in the paper.

The next day, February 2, 1960,

more students showed up at the lunch counter.

Sitting still for what was right.

No reservations needed at Woolworths.

The students seated themselves.

They were dressed in their best clothes.

They were polite and determined.

No guesswork for the waitress.

The young people knew the menu by heart.

They ordered. No food came.

So they sat. In silence.

And waited. And wanted.

A doughnut and coffee, with cream on the side.

The waitress reminded them:

WHITES ONLY.

But those kids wouldnt budge.

They didnt move.

Until they were served, they refused.

All they wanted was some food.

A doughnut and coffee,

with cream on the side.

To pass the time, the students read their schoolbooks.

They wrote in their journals.

They finished their homework.

They didnt need to read the menu,

so they studied for tomorrows test.

What had started in Greensboro

spread faster than a grease fire.

There were lunch counter protests in

Hampton, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee;

Montgomery, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia;

and many other southern towns.

If lunch counters could go from

WHITES ONLY to ALL WELCOME,

if segregation could turn to integration,

if black people and white people could break bread together,

everyone would pass the test.

Everybody would score high.

A+ with that coffee and cream on the side.

But many folks were not motivated to make that grade.

As the sit-ins grew, angry people gave the students a big dose of hatred served up hot and heaping.

Coffee, poured down their backs.

Milkshakes, flung in their faces.

Pepper, thrown in their eyes.

Ketchup not on the fries, but dumped on their heads.

They yelled at the students.

We dont serve your kind!

Go home!

Goodbye!

The students wanted to lash out, but couldnt.

They wanted to strike back, but didnt.