• 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