Before Montgomery and Greensboro: The Desegregation Movement in the District of Columbia, 1950-1953

Abstract

SINCE THE SIXTIES, voluminous studies have been published on the genesis of the civil rights movement. They generally center around two events: the valiant protest of Rosa Parks 1955 that was followed by the Montgomery boycott and the Greensboro sit-ins 1960. Writers' emphasis on Montgomery and Greensboro generally has served to give the impression that there were no movements before or that previous ones were not important.1 One such protest that deserves acknowledgement is the 1950-1953 desegregation sit-ins the District of Columbia. First of all, this protest represented the last and toughest battle of one of the most vigorous black leaders of the twentieth century-Mary Church Terrell. Through her efforts, the D. C. movement also marked the advent of the Second Reconstruction, which the judiciary struck down segregation, the President of the United States expressed support for desegregation, and whites openly expressed sympathy for the black cause. Third, this drive added respectability to such radical tactics as picketing, boycotting, and sit-ins. Finally, it paved the way for the great popular onslaught against segregation the sixties. For almost half a century Terrell had resided the nation's capital, then a heavily segregated city except for public transportation. In a 1944 interview published the Pittsburgh Courier, she recalled that in the 1890s colored people could dine anywhere the nation's capital, but near the end of the century, these rights were wrested away from us. I remember stopping at the drug store on the corner of 9th and F street for service. The white clerk told me that it was my last service, that the behavior of a loud Negro man there previously had caused them to alter their policy of serving colored people.2 The paradox of this historic event was that Terrell and her cohorts, a three-year court struggle, agitated for rights that had never been denied by law. When Washington was governed by the District Legislative Assembly, laws had been passed 1872 and 1873 that required all eating-place proprietors to serve any respectable well-behaved person regardless of color, or face a $100 fine and forfeiture of their license for