c. 1960: Tolerance training for racial abuse

Politics1960sPeople

Mar 25

These photographs, taken in Petersburg, Virginia, show students being prepared for the racial abuse they might be subjected to during the Civil Rights protests. The article — Sit-Ins’ Successful Strategy — described the sit-in as an “economic weapon”. ”It takes a tough inner fiber neither to flinch nor retaliate when, occasionally, hooligans pick on the sitters-in to discourage them or to provoke them into some violent act”.

In an attempt to tackle that situation head on, Petersburg students attended this extra-curricular course, given the working title “Social Drama.” Those who took the training were willingly subjected to humiliation and abuse: smoke-blowing, hair-pulling, chair-jostling, coffee-spilling, being hit with a newspaper, and being cursed at. In order to pass the course, the participant needed to remain calm and poised at all times.

Lunch counter sit-in volunteers getting preliminary training in what to expect on the firing line.

African-American student Virginius B. Thornton receiving tolerance training before picketing

Tolerance training being performed on Sit-In demonstrators. Virginius Thornton has smoke blown into his face by David Gunter on left (NAACP student advisor) and Leroy Hill on right

Civil Right activist Volunteers receive tolerance training and other forms of harassment to prepare for sit-in protests which will take place at bus stations and restaurants

Civil Rights picket signs prepared for a lunch counter protest. Organizing inside the church of African American integration group led by Rev. Wyatt T. Walker