"We were hoping [the sit-in] would catch on and it would spread throughout the country, but it went even beyond our wildest imagination."―Ezell Blair Jr., North Carolina Agricultural & Technical college student On February 1, 1960, four black college students sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in a Woolworth's department store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The young men knew the waitress couldn't take their order because of the store's segregationist policies. But the young men hadn't come to eat―they had come to make a peaceful stand for equality. At this time in the southern United States, a long-standing tradition of segregation prohibited blacks from sharing public spaces―schools, swimming pools, hotels, waiting rooms, bathrooms, and restaurants―with whites. The Greensboro students were inspired by previous sit-in protests, and they decided to sit at the lunch counter day after day, refusing to leave until they received service. In this story of individual courage and determination, we'll see how the Greensboro sit-in ignited the fight for African American civil rights among thousands of fellow students―both black and white―and triggered sit-ins at segregated lunch counters throughout the South. We'll also learn how the sit-in spurred other group protests, such as the Freedom Rides, and how the protestors' efforts eventually led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbidding segregation in public facilities across the nation.

Four black college students stage a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.

On February 1, 1960, four African American college students entered the Woolworth department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat down at the lunch counter. This lunch counter, like most in the American South, refused to serve black customers. The four students remained in their seats until the store closed. In the following days, they returned, joined by growing numbers of fellow students. These “sit-in” demonstrations soon spread to other southern cities, drawing in thousands of students and coalescing into a protest movement that would transform the struggle for racial equality. The Sit-Ins tells the story of the student lunch counter protests and the national debate they sparked over the meaning of the constitutional right of all Americans to equal protection of the law. Christopher W. Schmidt describes how behind the now-iconic scenes of African American college students sitting in quiet defiance at “whites only” lunch counters lies a series of underappreciated legal dilemmas—about the meaning of the Constitution, the capacity of legal institutions to remedy different forms of injustice, and the relationship between legal reform and social change. The students’ actions initiated a national conversation over whether the Constitution’s equal protection clause extended to the activities of private businesses that served the general public. The courts, the traditional focal point for accounts of constitutional disputes, played an important but ultimately secondary role in this story. The great victory of the sit-in movement came not in the Supreme Court, but in Congress, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, landmark legislation that recognized the right African American students had claimed for themselves four years earlier. The Sit-Ins invites a broader understanding of how Americans contest and construct the meaning of their Constitution.

“We want to live, we do not want to face persecution for expressing our political opinion; as women we don’t want to walk on the street with the constant horror that we could be intimidated for showing an inch of hair.” —Narges Kalhor, a young Iranian filmmaker, October 2009 On June 12, 2005, hundreds of women gathered outside Tehran University in Tehran, Iran. These women were protesting an issue that Iranian women have battled for more than one hundred years: gender inequality. Living in a conservative Muslim culture, Iranian women are subjected to discriminatory laws that serve the male-dominated society. In public, Iranian women must not be seen with men not related to them, and they must wear clothing completing covering their body and their hair. Many laws punish women even more harshly. If a woman is caught committing adultery, she can be sentenced to death by stoning. Yet men are free to have many wives and even enter temporary marriages. In the 1900s, Iranian women began protesting unjust laws and fighting for equality. For a time, under monarchs wishing to modernize, Iran became more lenient. Women began dressing as they wished, mixing socially with men, and working outside their homes. But after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, harsh punishments for moral offenses again became law. Women in professional occupations lost their jobs, and gender separation was enforced in public places. Iranian women continue to struggle against an oppressive regime, but they refuse to stop protesting. In this powerful story, we’ll learn how Iranian women have been punished and discriminated against by their patriarchal government, but yet they maintain their pursuit of equal rights. We’ll also see what their hopes and dreams are for the future.

Although slavery in the United States officially ended after the Civil War, prejudice against people of color lasted well into the twentieth and continues today. The Civil Rights Movement reached its peak in mid-twentieth century under the leadership of such figures as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Explore the sit-ins, protests, tragedies, and victories of the Civil Rights Movement.