Charleston sisters reflect on 1960 sit-in; share message for youth activists

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Two dozen Burke High School students sat down at a lunch counter inside the Kress building on King Street, determined to change the laws of a segregated South.

April marks the anniversary of Charleston’s first sit-in, which happened in 1960.

Two Lowcountry lifelong activists who are sisters shared their experiences on what it was like growing up during the civil rights movement and how youth activism can still play a vital role in creating change today.

Minerva Brown King and Millicent Brown were born in Charleston and spent summers at their home on James Island.

“One of the highlights was coming out and making homemade ice cream. Peach ice cream,” Minerva Brown King said.

It was a childhood that their mom tried to make as ordinary as possible.

Growing up in the movement

“That’s true of a lot of folks that you’ll find. You know that there are women being the support, raising the children, keeping things going as normal as possible because our father was out there, helping to organize,” Millicent Brown said.

Their father, J. Arthur Brown, was a prominent figure in the movement. He was president of the NAACP’s Charleston chapter and of the state NAACP.

“He was gone a lot. He traveled. He was part of organizing. So, we grew up in that kind of environment,” Millicent Brown said.

Distinguished civil rights leaders would be in and out of their home. During this time of a segregated South, hotels were not open to people of color.

“The comforts of our house were probably better. And not only our house, there were other people who were willing to house folks. But, you know, it’s kind of sad when you think about it that somebody like Thurgood Marshall or Marguerite Belafonte or Roy Wilkins were not allowed into local hotels,” Millicent Brown said.

Minerva Brown said she didn’t initially grasp how important the work was.

“I was so young. I didn’t quite grasp, but then gradually, as things started escalating, we got more and more involved,” she said. “We knew we had to break through Jim Crow barriers.”

Charleston’s first sit-in

By the time they hit middle school and high school, Minerva, along with 23 of her peers from Burke, including Harvey Gantt, who would later become Charlotte’s first Black mayor, prepared for months for what would be known as Charleston’s first sit-in.

Minerva was 15 at the time, the youngest in the group.

“It was drummed into our heads that it was a totally non-violent movement. If anybody attacked us, we were not to retaliate. If they spoke to us in a disrespectful way, we would not respond to that. And we didn’t,” Minerva Brown King said.

Planned purposely on a teacher’s workday, on April 1, 1960, the students dressed in their Sunday finest and marched in a straight line to the lunch counter of a dime store called the Kress building on King Street. Today, that store is now H&M.

It would be the second sit-in that made national news in America. The first happened with a group of college students a few months prior in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“We were told that we were not going to be served and we had to leave. Again, we did not address that at all, and we just sat there. We did not talk to each other. But on a signal, I guess, probably by one of the leaders, every now and then we would simply either say the Lord’s prayer or the 23rd Psalm,” Minerva Brown King said.

Waitresses would later pour ammonia all over the counters. The students continued to sit and did not move. They sat for five and a half hours until they were arrested and taken down to the police station, where they were bailed out an hour or two later.

Subsequent sit-ins and strategies like blocking traffic followed almost weekly.

“We were tax-paying citizens. And this appeal that we are not asking for anything extra. We’re asking for, we called it integration, we called it equality, and whatever. But it’s always been in my mind as all I want is what my mama and daddy’s taxes pay for,” Millicent Brown said.

Youth activism vs. the older generation

This approach, coming from the younger generation, butted heads with the slower-paced approach from the older generation.

“Younger folks are not as patient, and while the NAACP is busy with lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits, which is very important, there’s no question. And voter registration. But the direct-action approach is what’s coming out of the younger folks at that time,” Millicent Brown said.

“Being as young as we were, we were very cognizant of the fact that we weren’t taking chances of losing jobs, and we didn’t have mortgages. We had less to lose,” Minerva Brown King said.

Millicent Brown explained how the lawsuit their father filed in order for her older sister, Minerva, to attend an all-white Rivers High School, took years to come to fruition.

“You gotta understand. Minerva was the initial plaintiff in the school desegregation case,” Millicent Brown said. “I was in 7th grade.”

It took so long that Millicent was the sister who ended up becoming the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit, helping integrate Rivers High and marking a milestone for South Carolina schools.

“The ten of us don’t actually enter until 1963. I’m in 10th grade by then,” Millicent Brown said.

Message to today’s youth

Two sisters are still advocating decades later.

“We’re just trying to help people understand and clarify what the struggle really is and what it isn’t. Because it’s not one person against another person because of the color of their skin. It is the systems that relegate certain people to another status in life,” Millicent Brown said.

“There wasn’t anything so special about Minerva Brown or Millicent Brown or even J. Arthur. There were thousands of people, always have been in their own separate communities, who have understood and stood up,” Millicent Brown said.

Anyone at any age can be a change agent.