- There was something unique about this group that came to us that particular year, and we finally, without struggle, discovered what it was all about.

(soft blues music) - We just kind of jumped out there.

And we went where no other Howard student has gone before, and that's to sit down at a lunch counter.

So ah, we just wanted to do it.

(soft blues music) - We knew there was an injustice and we wanted to confront it then.

- It was just the time to make a change.

- We saw a good fight, we got in it.

- They said I couldn't sit here, so I was gonna sit here.

- To just step out and stand by what you believe in.

I think that took a lot of guts.

It took a lot of courage to do that.

- So for years and years we really never talked about it, because we didn't know what the law would do.

If they could come back on us or not.

So we just kind of forgot about it for awhile.

♪ This is the song I'm singin' about ♪ Brother, you know it's true - [Woman] We were not allowed to eat anywhere we wanted.

We had to drink from separate water fountains.

♪ Said if you's white, she's all right ♪ If you's brown, stick around ♪ And if you's black, oh brother ♪ Get back, get back, get back - The color of your skin was like poison.

And you know, you just, you didn't have a good feeling at all about yourself because you were just so ostracized.

- To think of some of the things that we went through can be um, can be painful.

- I can remember my father saying, "Son, you really can't go to "the University of Chattanooga because of your color."

- It was undergirded by law, the laws of our state.

And if you violated any of those laws, you went to jail.

Even Pinkerton sitting in were felonies.

- If you wanted to go into one of those stores and get something to eat, I think some of them had a small stand-up counter in the back of the store, but it was a visible thing.

It was something that the Chattanooga natives had embraced and said this is ours.

We're not gonna give it away.

- Well, we all knew that there were inequities.

We just didn't know what we could do about it.

So when we found out about the students all across the nation, the college students who were participating in the demonstrations, a group of students got together and said, "We can do this, too."

♪ Born in silence, bound in jail ♪ Had no money for to go their bail ♪ Keep your eyes on the prize ♪ Hold on - On February the 1st, you know, I think there were four students.

At least we had more than four.

♪ Keep your eyes on the prize ♪ Hold on - I remember being in a trigonometry class.

We as students began talkin' among ourselves.

We began to reflect on some of the sit-ins that were taking place, and somebody said, "Why don't we do that?"

- We had some pretty courageous, ambitious members of our class.

- We didn't have a lot of meetings.

We didn't do a lot of pre-planning.

People took their lead from the leaders of the four or five people that were the leaders.

We instructed them what to do, when to meet, where to meet, how long to sit.

And it was almost scripted.

- These are the instructions that were passed out.

Number one, please be on best behavior.

Number two, no weapons.

- We had about 10 rules that we were to go by.

No violence, no fighting.

And we pretty much abided by those rules.

- There will be three groups, one covering each store.

Grants will be led by Andrew Smith.

Woolworth by Robert Winston.

And McLellan by Bob Taylor.

- We had to be prepared to buy somethin', you know, and one of my classmates was kiddin' and talkin' about if they would've served us, we wouldn't have been able to afford what they were serving.

- Initial, I gotta say that it was pretty spontaneous and uh, and uh, and creative as well.

- Some of the senior class officers were going around in the hall whispering, telling about what was gonna take place, and it reminded me of the underground.

- [Man] We went down as a group.

I think it was a fairly small group.

- [Man] We didn't know what was gonna happen.

We didn't know how the city would take it.

We didn't know whether we'd be arrested.

- [Woman] I was there the first day and I sat on one of the stools.

- We sat there for about five minutes.

Nothing happened.

They just closed the counters down.

So I went over to the phone booth and called The Chattanooga Times and told them that we were having a sit-in.

Well, the Times office was only about two, three blocks away.

And within a few minutes they were there to take pictures and so forth.

- [Man] Nobody bothered us that first day.

There were people who were curious as to what we were doin'.

- I was nervous, but I knew that I wouldn't do anything to get into trouble.

- I wasn't afraid that I would get arrested or that they would turn the hose on me or anything.

I don't know why, but I wasn't afraid.

- I think my biggest fear was what would happen on the scene.

My parents didn't approve, but they didn't disapprove.

And there was some scary times.

- And we had no idea what might happen.

I mean, we could've been murdered at the scene or murdered when we got home, and my parents found out we were involved.

- The next day my picture was on one of the stools with my back turned, and my mother's sister called her and told her that she thinks that's me.

And it was.

- One of my best friends did get arrested because she was 19, so she was arrested and booked, and her name appeared in the paper for having been arrested.

And her mother worked for some people as a maid, and her mother was fired the next day because of that.

(singing in unison) - Students from Kirkman High School, which was the white high school downtown here, that second day, they came down and there was kind of a threat.

So it became a little frightening then.

When you saw other folks who wanted to prevent this process from taking place, we really took action to prevent it.

- Some of them were like bigger than we were and some of them 'em were making very threatening gestures, and you could tolerate the language, but you didn't know with your back to them what was going on a lot of times behind you, so you were kind of on alert and fearful, but like say, I don't think anybody was scared.

- After about the third day, a lot of the white high schools emptied out early and they showed up.

And I think one of those days there was a big fight that broke out.

It was just incredible.

I remember seeing a couple of guys who'd been beaten over the head with a shovel or things like that, injuries to the face.

- I ran.

There was a bunch of us on each side of the street and they turn the water hose on ya.

It was, it was terrible.

I couldn't believe it.

You know, like we were dogs.

- [Woman] I think since there were so many students, they were just trying to keep the peace and didn't really want a mob.

(upbeat instrumental music) - [Woman] We all got arrested, and they just herded us into a paddywagon.

- And then of course Mr.

Mapp and others from the NAACP sort of stepped in to kind of quell the situation on that.

- I saw that they were bailed out.

I got an attorney for them, and we followed them all the way through.

- I think towards the end we started to attract some of the guys on the football team, and it was probably gonna get out of hand.

But at that point they just shut the lunch counters down.

- After five or six days, things sort of worked themselves back to normal, but this is actually what brought our leaders to the table to start talking about change.

♪ Hold on, hold on ♪ Hold on, hold on ♪ Keep your eyes on the prize ♪ Hold on, why don't you hold on ♪ Time your lot was locked in jail ♪ Had no money for to go his bail - I didn't know what the environment of those were during that time.

- NAACP was their primary support, because everybody else was a little afraid.

- But you know, the teachers, they could not come out and say.

(mumbles), I'm quite sure they did, which I don't know which one of the teachers was involved in it, but I'm quite sure some of 'em went ahead on and did it.

- Those who weren't afraid to advise them, and in all probability I happen to have been one that would say to them you can succeed if you don't throw rocks, don't fight back.

Calmly behave, and they followed the instruction.

- We started as students, but we couldn't change the laws.

- Our class graduated that May from high school, and in August the lunch counters opened up and they were integrated.

It was as simple as that.

- They started it, but they missed the opening up of the counters.

- Maybe it made people think that maybe one group of people shouldn't be treated this way.

- It led to many, many other changes within the city.

- It ended up benefiting the population, both black and white.

- I think the fact that this class was involved in initiating the sit-in had a lot to do with what we are doing as adults, because we sort of set a tone in terms of providing opportunities whereby we could excel.

(soft blues music) - Even though we went to school in a segregated environment, most of us turned out to be really good citizens.

We had very successful classes.

- [Patricia] We began to chose other majors when we went to college because then we realized that we could do more than preach and teach.

- It sort of guided me as to what I am today.

I felt that I made a difference then and I still continue to feel like today that I'm making a difference.

- I enjoy getting in activities to try to make changes now.

Even today, some 40-some years later.

- But after things got started, we began to realize the implications of it all and say, hmm, if African Americans can now sit at this lunch counter in this five and dime store, well, maybe we can sit even in the White House someday.

- We didn't exactly knock on the door.

I think we probably kicked the door down for the next generation.

- It was an opportunity to make a difference and we took advantage of it.

- All of us who participated took leadership roles, and without them this could not have happened as well as it did.

- The students that didn't directly participate supported the participating students.

- That generation showed us what it's like to stand by what you believe in, to do what's right simply because it's the right thing to do.

Change takes courage.

Young, old, black, white, whatever.

You've gotta have a determination and a drive to say no matter what, I'm gonna do this, and that's what those students did.

♪ Sometimes in our lives ♪ We all have pain ♪ We all have sorrow ♪ But if we are wise ♪ We know that there's ♪ Always tomorrow ♪ Lean on me ♪ When you're not strong ♪ And I'll be your friend ♪ I'll help you carry on ♪ For it won't be long ♪ Till I'm gonna need ♪ Somebody to lean on ♪ Call me ♪ Call me ♪ Call me ♪ Call me ♪ Call