In this silent WSB newsfilm clip from Johnny Reb's Canteen in Atlanta, Georgia on March 8, 1961, white employees serve white patrons following a demonstration-ending agreement leading to the reopening of segregated lunch counters. The clip begins with a mostly empty lunch counter; a few couples sit in lunch booths. Behind the counter a man in a Confederate soldier's cap serves a customer in a cowboy hat. A man and woman sitting at a table in a booth drink coffee; women sitting at the counter also drink coffee and pay for their food. Other women work behind the counter taking orders and serving customers. Although a variety of civil rights organizations worked to better the situation of African Americans in Atlanta throughout the twentieth century, African American students from the Atlanta University Center became heavily involved in leading protests following the nationally publicized February 1960 student-led sit-ins in Greensville, North Carolina. Atlanta University Center students involved with the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR) worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to organize segregation protests in Atlanta beginning in March 1960. On March 7, 1961 African American attorney A. T. Walden and Chamber of Commerce head Ivan Allen, Jr. announced a demonstration-ending agreement in which lunch counters would remain segregated until a "reasonable time" after Atlanta schools desegregated that fall. Merchants agreed to rehire "where practicable" five to six hundred African Americans laid off during the sit-ins. While many demonstrators were unhappy with the arrangements, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African American leaders argued for trust and unity. On September 28, 1961 seventy-five stores agreed to open their lunch counters to African American patrons, making Atlanta the one hundred fourth city to integrate its counters since February 1960, according to the Southern Regional Council.

Title supplied by cataloger.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for digital conversion and description of the WSB-TV Newsfilm Collection.

1 clip (about 1 min.): black-and-white, silent ; 16 mm.

Original found in the WSB-TV newsfilm collection.

WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Johnny Reb's Canteen after it reopened following an agreement ending civil rights demonstrations in Atlanta, Georgia, 1961 March 8, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0953, 7:39/08:18, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, The University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.

Forms part of: Civil Rights Digital Library.