In those days, blacks may not have always liked the treatment they got, but they had no options. One of the main stores that we targeted was Rich's, the multi-story, moderate to up-scale department store where most of black Atlanta shopped. Their goal was to draw attention to their demands and to get arrested in order to make cases that would challenge the Jim Crow laws that sent us to separate "colored" water fountains, that sent us to separate "colored" toilets or that kept us from eating at all. March 9, 1960, Carolyn Long (one of my best friends) told me that she put on her best Sunday clothes, including high heels, and along with (her sister) Wylma and many of the 4,000 students of the Atlanta University Center colleges, marched through the streets of Atlanta, saying, in effect, "Our time has come."Ī week later, fanning out to places of public accommodation and facilities supported by tax dollars, the students held their first sit-in.
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