Editor's note: The Southern Foodways Alliance delves deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of Southern food.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/99570854 width="500"]
The Southern Foodways Alliance presents Counter Histories, a series of short films documenting the struggle to desegregate Southern restaurants in the Civil Rights Movement.
Soon after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2, outlawing ingrained forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, and national and religious minorities, hundreds of restaurants across the South integrated. More than four years of student-led, nonviolent protests—including lunch-counter sit-ins across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic—helped bring about the legislation.
In this piece we hear from Colia Clark, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, Bill Minor, Daphne Chamberlain and Reverend Ed King about the historic sit-in at the 1963 Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.
See more at southernfoodways.org
Previously:
The fight for civil rights at a Southern cafeteria
Speaking in tongues: a barbecue communion
The cook who picks cotton: reclaiming my roots
Mehepyewpleez? A love letter to K&W Cafeteria
Paula Deen and Southern food: Critics say credit is past due
5@5 – Why diversity matters in a restaurant kitchen
A toast to Leah Chase
The good ol days. I coulda had a sista service my fields than service me after she washed her stinking ass.
the times were painful for what we saw and learned. In ky we did not see the laws or the results...brave souls.
This is excellent! Young people of today really NEED to see this !
By knowing and understanding such shameful and uncomfortable history, maybe we can prevent it from ever happening again!
Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it!
Very moving. Thank you for posting this video.
What's amazing to me, the local authority came and arrested the black folks. What was the crime? White folks yelling and hitting and spitting got to go home and have a beer or two to celebrate. What a country!
Why do you find it amazing? Segregation was ingrained in the deep South and had been for decades. The fact that the Civil Rights Act was signed into law did almost nothing to change the attitudes of those who grew up accepting racism as a way of life. The only thing that has changed attitudes has been the passage of time, and we're obviously not there yet...
Feed the browns, starve the whites. It's like a traitorous Great Depression under this liberal back-stabbing administration.
Enjoy your f#@*$ing steak.
^ Don't know much about history...
The cleaners called, your sheets are ready to wear.
As a proud white person, I just have to say......
What?
WOW! Are you REALLY that F$%^&ING ignorant and racist??????
You apparently failed history as well!
I guess you've never heard of karma, hmm?
Great story about the sit-in. I'm very proud of my mother. There's an entire documentary about her life, "An Ordinary Hero".