ŭA Good City Gone Ugly,ŭ The Reporter
March 31, 1960

The Negro, according to the Southern myth, is content. Even the young ones. The myth has exploded with the sit-ins. For a week I have watched the Negroes at their meetings, watched them growing more determined and confident all the time, surprised by their own strength. On the Saturday when eighty were arrested, they came in waves: the police would arrest the first wave, expecting to put a stop to it, and then came the second wave, and then the third .... While the first eighty were being tried in city court, hundreds of other Negroes gathered at the First Baptist Church to plan further strategy. What if the students at Tennessee State were expelled for their part in the sit-ins? ŭThen weŭll close the school,ŭ said Willie Stewart, one of the leaders. ŭWeŭll all go out together. If we all stick together they canŭt stop us no matter what is handed down from whom.ŭ

Selected from the Library of America anthology.  See  Reporting  Civil  Rights:  American Journalism 1941-1963.