ORDER UP! OUR SIGNATURE BIGOT BURGER WITH A SIDE OF WHITE PRIVILEGE
By Truman
In the 1960s, Jim Crow laws deeply influenced racism in the South. Many restaurants refused service to African Americans; owners often told them to order their food at the bar and to take it home because they were not allowed to eat in the restaurant. This encouraged four African-American students to start a movement: the Greensboro, NC Sit-Ins, which are also known as the lunch counter Sit-Ins. Beginning on February 1st, 1960, these four men sat at the tables in a restaurant in Greensboro and asked for a meal. When refused service, they didn’t leave; they stayed. Because of those four students, more African Americans began sitting at white lunch counters. Those four slowly turned into 27, then 63, and then by the end of the school year, or roughly four and a half months later, 1,500. When beaten by angry white people, like Amelia Boynton would be five years later on Bloody Sunday, they were told to curl into a ball on the floor and take the beating.
While in Selma, we met Bruce Boynton, who famously sat at a whites-only counter on an interstate bus route and got arrested for it. When we met Mr. Boynton, we asked him about why he sat at a white-only restaurant. He said he marched over to the whites-only restaurant because the colored one was "unsanitary," and he just wanted a good meal. Mr. Boynton asked for a cheeseburger and tea, and then the waitress went to the back and came out with the manager, who said, “Nigger, move.”
Bruce Boynton stayed. He told us that he didn’t really have a plan while doing this; he just decided to stay once he heard that word. By sitting in a whites-only section, he sparked a Supreme Court case that desegregated interstate bus lines to match the federal law that prohibited segregation on public buses. Mr. Boynton also inspired the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders were Civil Rights activists who rode buses into segregated states as a way to protest segregation. Many of these buses got ambushed, mobbed, or bombed.
If you think about it, Bruce Boynton was an inspiration for the Civil Rights movement. If he had never sat in the whites-only section at the counter, the Freedom Riders may never have happened. Mr. Boynton sat at a whites-only counter two years prior to the Greensboro Sit-Ins, so it could be argued that the Greensboro four were inspired by Bruce Boynton. Mr. Boynton and the Greensboro four were both very pivotal in the Civil Rights movement, where they all sat for their rights.
While in Selma, we met Bruce Boynton, who famously sat at a whites-only counter on an interstate bus route and got arrested for it. When we met Mr. Boynton, we asked him about why he sat at a white-only restaurant. He said he marched over to the whites-only restaurant because the colored one was "unsanitary," and he just wanted a good meal. Mr. Boynton asked for a cheeseburger and tea, and then the waitress went to the back and came out with the manager, who said, “Nigger, move.”
Bruce Boynton stayed. He told us that he didn’t really have a plan while doing this; he just decided to stay once he heard that word. By sitting in a whites-only section, he sparked a Supreme Court case that desegregated interstate bus lines to match the federal law that prohibited segregation on public buses. Mr. Boynton also inspired the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders were Civil Rights activists who rode buses into segregated states as a way to protest segregation. Many of these buses got ambushed, mobbed, or bombed.
If you think about it, Bruce Boynton was an inspiration for the Civil Rights movement. If he had never sat in the whites-only section at the counter, the Freedom Riders may never have happened. Mr. Boynton sat at a whites-only counter two years prior to the Greensboro Sit-Ins, so it could be argued that the Greensboro four were inspired by Bruce Boynton. Mr. Boynton and the Greensboro four were both very pivotal in the Civil Rights movement, where they all sat for their rights.