Kress Building

• Downtown Baton Rouge

• State Level Significance

• Ethnic Heritage• First Louisiana Sit-

Ins of Modern Civil Rights Movement -- 1960

Kress Building

.

Kress Building, East Baton Rouge Parish

Reads as two stories

Windows replaced; some openings boarded over

Party wall, masonry construction

Remodeled 1930s in Moderne style

“L” shaped footprint

Third Street Facade

Partly encircles Levy Building

L-Shaped plan reflects growth & enlargement

Reads as four stories

Architectural features more restrained

Windows also replaced

Main Street Facade

Greensboro, North Carolina, February 1, 1960

The Sit-In Movement

Non-Violent Direct Action

vs.

Lengthy Court Cases

Well-behaved & non-violent no matter what

By end of February sit-ins in 15 cities in five states:

North and South Carolina

Tennessee

Florida

Virginia

100 cities by November 1960

Kress Department store

Sitman’s Drug Store (lost)

Greyhound Bus Station (lost)

Baton Rouge Sit-Ins March 28, 1960

Seven Southern students peacefully challenge segregated lunch counter

Weapons Search of Protester Felton Valdry

Paddy wagon – jail transport – on the right

Janette Hoston Harris with her jail identification bracelet

Opposed sit-ins as threat to university. . .

Expelled protesters

Southern President

Felton G. Clark

Southern students

fill out withdrawal

slips

Withdraw or stay in school?

Scholars recognize as distinct and significant phase of Civil Rights Movement

No more second class citizenship

Inspired others to act via non-violent direct action

Accelerated pace of social change

New and younger class of black leaders

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

Led to court cases that helped overturn segregation

Importance of Sit-Ins

U.S. Supreme Court . . .

• overturned convictions of students for disturbing the peace

• affirmed the principle that a licensed public business could not discriminate or operate in a segregated fashion.

Garner vs. Louisiana December 1961

Thurgood Marshall & A. P. Tureaud

Exceptional Significance

• Only four years shy of 50 year threshold• Civil Rights Movement is “period of time

which can be logically examined together.”— Bulletin 22

• Sit-In Movement and Baton Rouge Sit-Ins are subjects of scholarly study. Movement called “watershed in the history of black protest” in U.S.

Kress Building of Exceptional Significance to Louisiana and eligible for National Register