W–002 · Documentary photograph and sources

Three Seats at the Counter

On 28 May 1963, Anne Moody, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis sat down at the whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi. It was a sit-in. For months, activists had been boycotting stores on Capitol Street, demanding equal service and the hiring of Black employees.

Protesters at Woolworth’s in Jackson are doused with mustard and other food. Photograph by Fred Blackwell, Jackson Daily News / University of Southern Mississippi Libraries.

Provenance and sources for frame 1

Fred Blackwell made this picture for the Jackson Daily News. The digital file is held by the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries in the Erle E. Johnston Jr. Papers, M319-52. The source lists the work as copyrighted. Displayed file: 1371 × 876 pixels. The source identifies this image as copyrighted. Full image record in Russian.

crdl.usg.edu mississippiencyclopedia.org crmvet.org View image file

NAACP youth activists organised the morning action. Police quickly arrested picketers outside. The first three protesters sat at the counter undisturbed for about an hour. Then white schoolchildren and adults entered. Memphis Norman was dragged from his stool and beaten unconscious; police arrested both him and one assailant. According to John Salter, nobody else inside the store was arrested that day.

Others joined the protest, including Joan Trumpauer and John Salter. Trumpauer and Moody studied at Tougaloo College, where Salter taught. People took turns at the counter, so the group differs between photographs made that day. The familiar picture of three seated protesters preserves only one moment.

Three sit-in participants at the Woolworth’s counter are surrounded by a crowd; a man pours liquid — John Salter, Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody at the Woolworth’s counter as the crowd attacks them. Jackson, 28 May 1963. This is a distinct moment and angle, not a sharper copy of the first frame.Jackson, 28 May 1963 · photographer of this frame unconfirmed

Provenance and sources for frame 2

Creator and provenance
The frame belongs to the Woolworth’s sit-in in Jackson on 28 May 1963. Captions and photographs from this series appear in the Wisconsin Historical Society archive and M. J. O’Brien’s book. The photographer of this particular exposure has not been confirmed in an accessible catalogue; it should not be attributed to Fred Blackwell without matching the original negative.

File and rights
Reader-supplied JPEG, 1486 × 1234. The original negative and the history of this digital copy have not been established; no free licence is stated.

Wisconsin Historical Society: sit-in photographs M. J. O’Brien: We Shall Not Be Moved File on WITNESS · 1486 × 1234

The sit-in lasted more than two hours. White onlookers beat the participants, burned them with cigarettes, poured ketchup and mustard over them and threw sugar and salt. The store remained open throughout. When the crowd began wrecking it, the manager announced that it was closing and police ordered everyone out.

Fred Blackwell of the Jackson Daily News photographed three participants still seated at the counter, surrounded by laughing spectators. Papers across the country published the image. Anne Moody gave her own detailed account in Coming of Age in Mississippi.

The Jackson campaign continued after the sit-in, with marches and negotiations. On 12 June 1963, two weeks after the lunch-counter protest, NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was murdered in the city.

Three Seats at the Counter

1. The lunch-counter sit-in

2. Another moment at the counter