Talk:Nashville sit-ins
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[edit] Some web references
Here's the obvious stuff from Google: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Here's a more deatiled article from the Nashville Globe and Independent: [5]
The only one that I've actually used as a reference so far is the first one. Kaldari 02:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Date of first workshop
Although many sources say that the non-violence workshops started in 1959, the first one was actually held in March 1958. They were not held regularly, however, until 1959. Here are some sources for reference:
Harding: When did you start organizing these workshops in Nashville?
Lawson: Glenn Smiley and I did a workshop sometime in the early Spring of 1958 for the Nashville Christian Leadership Council...
- Excerpts from an Interview with Jim Lawson
On March 26-28, 1958, NCLC members held a workshop on nonviolent tactics against segregation. - Nashville Sit-ins (1959-1961)
Kaldari 02:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nashville Christian Leadership Conference or Council?
It seems almost an equal number of sources use "Conference" as use "Council". The Tennessean uses both.[6][7] Tennessee State University uses both.[8][9] The Nashville Scene uses "Conference". The Nashville Public Library uses "Council".[10] Google favors "Conference" over "Council" (148 hits vs 88 hits). However, primary sources such as James Lawson and the First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill use "Council".[11][12] Kaldari 03:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- Both the Vanderbilt University collection of the Kelly Miller Smith papers and TSU's biography of Smith say "Nashville Christian Leadership Council." There is interference, I think, from the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference," of which Smith was also a member. Iamvered 21:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] After the bombing
"Diane Nash then asked the mayor if he believed that lunch counters in the city should be desegregated. West answered, "Yes", then added, "That's up to the store managers, of course.""
I just watched a 1960 interview with Diane Nash on PBS, and she says she also asked him if he believed it was right to "discriminate against another person based solely on their race or skin colour" and he replied in the negative. Another contemporary interview with the mayor showed him reaffirming his answer as a moral decision that he would make again.
After reading this article (with no other sources) I'd probably paint mayor West as one of the bad guys, which he may not have been. I'll leave page edits to people with more knowledge on the subject though.
The video is at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/04_nonviolence.html#video
- It's definitely an interesting issue. Ben West clearly agreed that segregation was morally wrong, but he seemed quite reluctant to do anything about it legally. Whether or not this made him a "bad guy" is rather subjective. C. T. Vivian, for example, was extremely critical of the mayor's lack of leadership on race issues. In the end, most historians credit the boycott and behind-the-scenes negotiations between the merchants and student leaders as the deciding factors in ending segregation in Nashville, although I'm sure Ben West's moral support had some influence. Please feel free to add more information to the article about Ben West's role in the story. The article right now is far from comprehensive. Kaldari 07:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
