[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1070]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMEMORATION OF GREENSBORO SIT-INS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight on 
this day, February 1, 2005, for February 1, 1960, 45 years ago, became 
a history-making day when four young men, four young African American 
students, took seats in an orderly, peaceful, nonviolent fashion at a 
lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were denied service, 
but they continued to sit. Their actions inspired hundreds and 
thousands of African American college students to start sitting in and 
sitting down all across the American South to end segregation and 
racial discrimination in places of public accommodation. By sitting 
down, Mr. Speaker, they were truly standing up for the very best in 
America.
  Some of these young people had lighted cigarettes put out in their 
hair and down their backs. Others were beaten, arrested, and jailed. 
Some were charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace 
while they were very orderly and very peaceful. They went to jail by 
the hundreds and thousands as sit-ins spread all across the South like 
wildfire. The action of these students brought about what I like to 
call a nonviolent revolution in the American South.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is fitting and appropriate that we pause to 
pay homage to the memory and contribution of these four young students 
and hundreds and thousands of others who followed in their footsteps.

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