Origins of and training for the Nashville sit-ins
Though the Greensboro sit-ins predated the Nashville campaign, Lawson insists that plans for the Nashville sit-ins occurred well before any of the actions happened. He describes the workshops the students did to learn about non-violence and the ways they tested various options before launching their protests.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with James Lawson, October 24, 1983. Interview F-0029. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
How did you get connected with the sit-ins in Nashville?
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
-
OK. Well, in '57 I became the Southern Secretary of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
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OK.
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
-
It's in that relationship that I met Will and of course many others ...
amm, and in going to, ahh, deciding to live in Nashville rather than in,
ah, Atlanta I had my choice as to where I could open, ah, could open the
office and all -- I chose Nashville
because a variety of people were saying, you know, Vanderbilt University
would be a good spot to be around, so and the net result was, that's
where I settled, ah, and in the process of my first immediate task, was,
ah, doing workshops on non-violence all around the South in the
movement. As a consequence of that, I determined that I should try to
develop a model for the movement to look at in which I would put into
operation, ah, kind of a full display of non-violent philosophy in
action, amm, and that should be done in Nashville. So we had already
geared some workshops in Nashville in 19 ... the spring of, whatever,
the spring of '58, and then the Nashville Christian
Leadership Conference determined that ought to be a project for the
downtown area. So in the Fall of 1959 we started a series of workshops
with student and community people with an aim toward developing a
leadership in the downtown area specifically centered. We did testing,
developing our targets and all the rest of it. So that's how I got
involved in the sit-ins.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
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OK.
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
-
So in February ... We did testing in November, then workshops,
followups ... Then we were stopped by exams and whatnot. In any case,
when February first came around, we were ready and we moved
immediately.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
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Right, the Greensboro sit-in did precede what you did ...
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
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Did precede that public phase.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
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Yes.
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
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But we had, we had already done not only preparation, but exploratory
work on targets, practicing sending groups out to practice
non-violence--not sitting continuously, but when
they were trying instead to confront waiters and waitresses and if
possible the managers and then leaving before arrest.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
-
Oh, I see.
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
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But that was all for the purpose of their training and discovering what
was going on.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
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This testing phase started in the Fall then?
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
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Yeah. This started in November; it's November I'm pretty sure when we
started the weekly forages of experimentation into a variety of lunch
counters and restaurants.
- DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:
-
OK.
- JAMES A. LAWSON:
-
Downtown Nashville.
