MAY 28, 1963
The nation’s most violent reaction to a sit-in protest took place when a mob attacked Black and white activists at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.
One of them, Tougaloo College professor John Salter, said, “I was attacked with fists, brass knuckles and the broken portions of glass sugar containers, and was burned with cigarettes. I’m covered with blood, and we were all covered by salt, sugar, mustard, and various other things.”
Salter and fellow protesters Joan Trumpaeur and Anne Moody, who were both Tougaloo students, can be seen in the famous picture of the event. The protest came eight days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state enforcement of restaurant segregation is a violation of the 14th Amendment.
M.J. O’Brien’s book, “We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired”, describes that event.
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