Tuesday, May 28, 1963: Sit-in, Jackson, Mississippi

From The Associated Press:

     A Negro drive against rigid segregation kicked off Tuesday with picketing and an uproarious sit-in marked by intermittent violence.

     Battering fists and mustard baths failed to break up the lunch counter sit-in. Whites and Negroes taking part clung stubbornly to their stools until the store closed.

     The shutdown came two hours after the uproar had started. Early in the demonstration, one Negro, Memphis Norman, 21, of Wiggins, Miss., was knocked off his stool and severely beaten and kicked.

     Norman, bloodied by the blows, was dragged to safety and hustled off by police. One of the whites who attacked him also was arrested.

     The flare of violece in the Woolworth store came after five pickets -- three Negro and two white -- had been arrested on downtown streets.

     Police made no effort to remove the sit-in demonstrators or to control the jeering crowd that besieged them, squirting mustard and catsup from plastic bottles taken off the counter.

     Officers said that unless the store management made a complaint, they could step in only in cases of actual violence.

From United Press International:

     Two Negroes and a white college professor were kicked, beaten, and sprayed with mustard, catsup and sugar Tuesday when they sought service at a white lunch counter in the eruption of promised civil rights demonstrations.
     Police arrested a 26-year-old white former policeman, Benny G. Oliver, and charged him with assault on Negro Memphis Norman, 21, of Wiggins, Miss., a student at Tougaloo Christian College.
     Norman, badly beaten after being knocked off a lunch counter stool, was admitted to University Hospital for treatment. He was charged with disturbing the peace.
     A crowd of about 200 whites gathered in the store to taunt the Negro and white students of a predominantly Negro private college near here as they sat passively at the lunch counter.

Note: The now-famous photo at top, taken by Fred Blackwell of the Jackson Daily News, shows John Salter (the Tougaloo professor referred to in the UPI report), Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody at the Woolworth's counter. The photo at left, taken by Jack Thornell of the Jackson Daily News, shows Memphis Norman being kicked by Benny Oliver.

* Summaries from Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @
* "Real Violence: 50 Years Ago at Woolworth" (Jackson Free Press, 2013): @
* "We Shall Not Be Moved" (M.J. O'Brien, 2013): @
* Author's website: @   

John Salter
* Website: @
* 2005 interview (from Civil Rights Movement Veterans): @

* "Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism" (Salter, 1979): @

Joan Trumpauer
* Short biography (from moralheroes.org): @

* "An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland" (2013 documentary): @ 
* "Why We Became Freedom Riders" (2007): @

* Earlier posts on Freedom Rides (May 1961): @ and @

Anne Moody
* Biography (from Mississippi Writers and Musicians): @
* Biography (from University of Minnesota): @
* "Coming of Age in Mississippi" (Moody, 1968): @

* Excerpt: @ 

Memphis Norman

* 2005 obituary (Washington Post): @ 

---