#HistoricPic Jack Spratt Lunch Counter 1941
"Exterior view of Jack Spratt Coffee House, located at 47th Street and Kimbark Avenue in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, March 28, 1941. Site of a sit-in conducted by members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in May 1943. HB-06326-A, Chicago History Museum, Hedrich-Blessing Collection"
Now that there are some great collections of images online, I find I’m learning a lot more about Chicago history by bumping into a mysterious image that I then try to find out more about. This is an image of a seminal and forgotten moment of the Civil Rights movement. It also shows something I stumbled into in researching my book—the degree to which African-Americans were using the rhetoric of the defense of freedom during World War II to protest the lack of freedom at home.
It also reminded me of a theme in my book--that it takes someone to fight to have history remembered. It's remembered because it was James Farmer himself who repeatedly pointed to this incident as seminal to his thinking. The building is gone. If it was there, it should have had a plaque.
James Farmer had a degree in Divinity from Howard University and qualified as a conscientious objector. He was heavily influenced by Gandhi’s theories and had gotten funding by 1942 to found the Congress of Racial Equality. He came to Chicago to organize a chapter, which decided to use Jack Spratt Coffee House as a test case. Jack Spratt would serve black patrons but they would charge a dollar for a donut that cost white patrons a nickel and they would conspicuously serve them after everyone else. Jack Sprat had room for 30 to 35 people. So Farmer organized 28 people in mixed race parties to go in and take every available seat. The manager tried to serve just the white patrons but they handed their plates to their black neighbor. She then said she’d serve the black customers in the basement. No one moved. Then she offered the back of the coffee house. No one moved. She told them to leave. No one moved. New customers were coming in, looking around, and leaving. So she called the police, who had been notified by CORE that a protest would be happening. The police told her they wouldn’t take any action. Finally everyone was served. The action changed Jack Spratt’s policy going forward and proved to Farmer that nonviolence could effect change.
a great JSTOR article: All of Africa Will Be Free Before We Can Get a Lousy Cup of Coffee: The Impact of the 1943 Lunch Counter Sit-Ins on the Civil Rights Movement on JSTOR
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