TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Feb 14, 2023

Nashville Public Radio’s podcast “This is Nashville” is out with a new episode remembering the sit-ins at Nashville lunch counters. As the episode reports, it was 12:40 p.m. on Feb. 13, 1960, when Black college students sat down at lunch counters in downtown Nashville and asked to be served. They sat in silent protest against segregation at the city’s lunch counters, but were met with racial slurs and abuse. John Lewis, who would go on to become an icon of the civil rights movement and later a U.S. representative, was arrested for the first time at Woolworth and would spend weeks in jail along with dozens of fellow activists. By May, six of the downtown lunch counters had begun serving Black customers. Tune in and hear veterans of the sit-ins talk about their experience.