26 Powerful Photos From The Nashville Sit-Ins

On Feb. 13 1960, students in Nashville, Tenn. started a non-violent movement to end racial segregation at lunch counters in drug stores. This is what the movement looked like.

1.

Harold Lowe Jr. / The Tennessean

2.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Students attempted to get served at the lunch counter of Walgreen's drugstore in downtown Nashville.

3.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Several white men attempt to drag some of the black students from the lunch counter. Police ended up arresting 73 students, most of them black.

4.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

5.

Jack Corn / The Tennessean

Thousands of people stood outside of the Nashville city court where students were being tried from earlier lunch counter demonstrations.

6.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Diane Judith Nash, one of the 77 students on trial, made a statement that defendants in the race demonstration cases decided not to pay fines as a matter of "moral principle."

7.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Nashville city patrolman searches one of the 77 defendants before his return to jail.

8.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

9.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Jean Wynona Fleming, a Fisk University student, was arrested after sitting at a downtown drugstore lunch counter.

10.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

Students Dennis Gregory Foote, John Robert Lewis, and O.D. Hunt (from right to left) were also arrested.

11.

Gerald Holly / The Tennessean

Matthew Walker, Peggy Alexander, Diane Nash and Stanley Hemphill (from left to right) eating lunch at the Post House Restaurant in the Greyhound bus terminal. This was the first time since that blacks were served at previously all-white counters in Nashville.

12.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

The manager at one restaurant turned on a fumigating machine to make it uncomfortable for the sit-in demonstrators.

13.

Gerald Holly / The Tennessean

14.

Harold Lowe Jr. / The Tennessean

15.

Harold Lowe Jr. / The Tennessean

16.

Harold Lowe Jr. / The Tennessean

17.

Harold Lowe Jr. / The Tennessean

A black female student was injured and put on a stretcher after a fight broke out between black and white student demonstrators.

18.

Eldred Reaney / The Tennessean

19.

http://J.T. Phillips / The Tennessean

20.

Frank Empson / The Tennessean

Bobby Talbert, a 21-year-old student, was released from Nashville jail after being arrested during a demonstration. Other sit-in demonstrators posted the money for his bond.

21.

Eldred Reaney / The Tennessean

One Nashville patrolman testifying in the city court trial of a sit-in demonstrator.

22.

Bill Preston / The Tennessean

A B&W Cafeteria employee helps white customers out of the store as he blocks black college students at the front door. There was a demonstration being held inside.

23.

Bill Preston / The Tennessean

One young girl watched college student Jan Emmert get shoved to the ground by Bobby Gene Taylor, a restaurant employee.

24.

Bill Preston / The Tennessean

25.

Jimmy Ellis / The Tennessean

26.

Bill Preston / The Tennessean

All the photos featured above are courtesy of The Tennessean and can be found on their website.