What began as a peaceful protest at Jackson’s Woolworth by Tougaloo students Anne Moody, Pearlena Lewis, and Memphis Norman devolved into chaos. “We were well aware of sit-ins and organized this one on the assumption that people would be quickly arrested,” says Salter. But they weren’t. O’Brien explains that Moody, Lewis, and Norman weren’t immediately arrested because a recent Supreme Court ruling said police officers could no longer intervene unless invited in by the proprietors. “All of a sudden the police weren’t sure what to do and so they stayed out of the store and therefore allowed, kind of, the riot to take place,” says O’Brien. Taunts and jeers developed into violence when Central High, the nearby white school, adjourned for lunch and Woolworth flooded with antagonistic students.

“For all of us, it became an endurance contest,” says Trumpauer. The demonstrators prayed, read from the Bible and sang Freedom Songs. Salter describes, “a huge mob gathered, with open police support while the three of us sat there for three hours. I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I'm covered with blood and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”

The mob continued to pelt the demonstrators with anything they could find. “Placemats, knick-knacks, and other paraphernalia went flying through the air, sometimes hitting, sometimes missing the human targets,” writes O’Brien. Only with the intervention of Adam Beittel, then Tougaloo’s president, did the riot begin to diffuse and disperse. Called by Rev. Ed King for help, Dr. Beittel negotiated with Woolworth manager Harold Braun. Finally, after nearly three hours of taunting and physical attacks, the sit-in demonstration came to a close.

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The Jackson Woolworth sit-in was one of the most violent and publicized efforts of the 1960s. Photos of the event appeared in papers across the nation.

​- excerpt from The Farish Street Project