The Civil Rights Movement - A History of Violence

In early 1960, student activists in Greensboro staged a series of sit-ins at a Woolworth Department store. This was protest theater built for the 20th century, pioneered by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., says Julian Zelizer. The spectacle of young black college students being harassed and spat upon by white counter protesters went out over the airwaves on television. It was the first time that really large numbers of people outside the south were confronted with images of what was going on.