MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE RICHMOND 34 COMMEMORATION
February 22, 2015 marked the 55th Anniversary of the Sit-ins. Plans are being developed for an endowment fund in honor of the VUU/Richmond 34, which will be a major fundraiser for the university. A new website is being developed for the Richmond 34.
Bundy Films documentary screener for the Richmond 34 film featuring Elizabeth Johnson Rice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3jNoJQIhsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3jNoJQIhsU
Richmond Times-Dispatch - Sunday, February 14, 2010 After being jailed in the Thalhimers protest, Elizabeth Johnson Rice appeared on NBC's 'Today' show to debate segregationists on 'Why Negroes Deserve First-Class Citizenship.' Today she has forged a friendship with Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, granddaughter of the man who had her arrested. http://www.richmond.com/news/article_7ab7ff1a-6508-5e4c-9c76-612a72879bd3.html
University of Virginia/ PBS Documentary - Rising Up is a visually stunning documentary film of the African American experience in the civil rights era. The film broadly covers the South, but concentrates on Virginia and follows major events with close, personal stories, including: Samuel W. Tucker's 1939 library sit-in, Irene Morgan's 1946 busing case before the Supreme Court, the school desegregation crisis in 1958-59, the 1960 sit-ins, the violence of Danville and Birmingham in 1963, and the resurgence of black voting and politics in 1965. Elizabeth Johnson Rice BPOS Foundation Founder Rice’s father was a civil rights activist and worked for the NAACP. Rice herself got involved in the sit-in movement and remembers being harassed and having hot coffee knocked into her lap at a segregated dining facility.
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/risingup/about.html
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/risingup/about.html
PRESS CLIPS
Note: Many of the TV and radio broadcasts were not online, however the event received coverage before and during the Sit-In/Stand Out event on WRIR, WRVA, WCVE, NBC12, ABC-Channel 8, and WTVR CBS-6. Jeff Sadler, Larry Woodson, Jay Smith and Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt were regular guests on these programs leading up to the major events on Feb. 22.
Sit-In/Stand Out also received coverage on numerous community calendars, some are posted here.
Coverage of Richmond 34 is ongoing today. The following is a compilation of media clips from the Internet, newspapers and TV.
Sit-In/Stand Out also received coverage on numerous community calendars, some are posted here.
Coverage of Richmond 34 is ongoing today. The following is a compilation of media clips from the Internet, newspapers and TV.
february 9, 2015
THE COMMONWEALTH TIMES
Students’ protests, demonstrations maintain the legacy, values of Richmond 34 decades
By Melissa Stamp
Even as Black History Month begins, the pervasive racial tensions evident across the U.S. in the last year continue.
Students from VCU, the University of Richmond and Virginia Union University have participated in the national movement to assert the importance and value of black lives in today’s society through protests and demonstrations. Their actions mirror those of students fighting to do the same thing 55 years ago. Read more: http://www.commonwealthtimes.org/2015/02/09/students-protests-demonstrations-maintain-the-legacy-values-of-richmond-34-decades/
Students’ protests, demonstrations maintain the legacy, values of Richmond 34 decades
By Melissa Stamp
Even as Black History Month begins, the pervasive racial tensions evident across the U.S. in the last year continue.
Students from VCU, the University of Richmond and Virginia Union University have participated in the national movement to assert the importance and value of black lives in today’s society through protests and demonstrations. Their actions mirror those of students fighting to do the same thing 55 years ago. Read more: http://www.commonwealthtimes.org/2015/02/09/students-protests-demonstrations-maintain-the-legacy-values-of-richmond-34-decades/
february 19, 2012
HISTORY REPLAYS TODAY
The Beginning of the End of Segregation in Richmond
The sit-in movement began Feb.1, 1960, in Greensboro, NC,1 and on February 20, 1960 it began in Richmond, VA when 200 VUU students marched "from the campus on Lombardy Street, down Chamberlayne Avenue, to Woolworth's department store on Broad Street," and other downtown stores and waited patiently to be served at the whites only lunch counters.2 Instead of serving them, management closed the store's lunch counters. Read more: http://www.historyreplaystoday.com/2012/02/the-begining-of-end-of-segregation-in.html
The Beginning of the End of Segregation in Richmond
The sit-in movement began Feb.1, 1960, in Greensboro, NC,1 and on February 20, 1960 it began in Richmond, VA when 200 VUU students marched "from the campus on Lombardy Street, down Chamberlayne Avenue, to Woolworth's department store on Broad Street," and other downtown stores and waited patiently to be served at the whites only lunch counters.2 Instead of serving them, management closed the store's lunch counters. Read more: http://www.historyreplaystoday.com/2012/02/the-begining-of-end-of-segregation-in.html
FEBRUARY 22, 2011
EXAMINER.COM
The Richmond 34 Marker - VUU students who fought racial injustice in Richmond
By Tonya Rice
The Richmond 34 Marker One of the city's most recent landmarks was placed in Downtown Richmond to mark the fifitieth anniversary of a vital civil rights event led by students from Virginia Union University. Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/the-richmond-34-marker-vuu-students-who-fought-racial-injustice-richmond
The Richmond 34 Marker - VUU students who fought racial injustice in Richmond
By Tonya Rice
The Richmond 34 Marker One of the city's most recent landmarks was placed in Downtown Richmond to mark the fifitieth anniversary of a vital civil rights event led by students from Virginia Union University. Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/the-richmond-34-marker-vuu-students-who-fought-racial-injustice-richmond
FEBRUARY 23, 2010
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
J. Legend: Reform education to honor Thalhimers sit-in
By Michael Paul Williams
Musician John Legend urged a CenterStage audience last night to honor the Richmond 34's courageous legacy by reforming a still-unequal education system.
"Fixing education is the ultimate long-term stimulus plan," he said during "An Evening of Reflection with John Legend" at CenterStage's Carpenter Theatre.
The event capped a day of commemorative activities 50 years to the day after 34 Virginia Union University students engaged in a historic sit-in to desegregate the lunch counter and Richmond Room at Thalhimers department store.
Their protest marked one of the first mass arrests of the civil-rights movement. Nineteen months later, Thalhimers became one of the first
Richmond retailers to desegregate its lunch counters.
Legend, a six-time Grammy winner, opened with a heartfelt rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Visions." But on this night, his message, not his
music, took center stage.
He said he was in Richmond "to honor the legacy of these wonderful people who made a sacrifice for all of us."
"It makes me want to live a life worthy of their sacrifices," said Legend, who is engaging in global activism through his Show Me campaign.
Fifty years after the Thalhimers lunch-counter demonstration, poverty and injustice endure in America, Legend said before launching a blistering attack on the inequities of the U.S. education system whose schools have been described as "dropout factories."
"Our nation has an education system that helps perpetuate inequity," he said. "We have to level the playing field."
Legend was joined onstage by three Richmond Community High School students, who asked the musician questions.
The evening opened with a performance by Amaranth Contemporary Dance, which in collaboration with VCU Dance opened with a tribute tthe Richmond 34.
"Equalizing the Lines: Prelude to a New Dream" featured choreography to the backdrop of video clips of young people and Richmond 34 members.
"It was like living in two worlds: a black world and a white world," former VUU president Allix B. James said of that era on video.
The push-pull movements of the dancers suggested that the quest for equality -- which often found expression in a march -- was often a dance
with an unwilling partner. But last night's dance ended with an interracial couple's embrace.
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_783e0c21-0ec4-59b5-8f63-e7933de66fd7.html
M. H. WEST & CO., INC
On February 22nd, 1960 34 Virginia Union students entered the lunch counter and Richmond Room at Thalhimers department store.
http://www.mhwest.com/2010/02/22/richmond-centerstage-honors-richmond-34
J. Legend: Reform education to honor Thalhimers sit-in
By Michael Paul Williams
Musician John Legend urged a CenterStage audience last night to honor the Richmond 34's courageous legacy by reforming a still-unequal education system.
"Fixing education is the ultimate long-term stimulus plan," he said during "An Evening of Reflection with John Legend" at CenterStage's Carpenter Theatre.
The event capped a day of commemorative activities 50 years to the day after 34 Virginia Union University students engaged in a historic sit-in to desegregate the lunch counter and Richmond Room at Thalhimers department store.
Their protest marked one of the first mass arrests of the civil-rights movement. Nineteen months later, Thalhimers became one of the first
Richmond retailers to desegregate its lunch counters.
Legend, a six-time Grammy winner, opened with a heartfelt rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Visions." But on this night, his message, not his
music, took center stage.
He said he was in Richmond "to honor the legacy of these wonderful people who made a sacrifice for all of us."
"It makes me want to live a life worthy of their sacrifices," said Legend, who is engaging in global activism through his Show Me campaign.
Fifty years after the Thalhimers lunch-counter demonstration, poverty and injustice endure in America, Legend said before launching a blistering attack on the inequities of the U.S. education system whose schools have been described as "dropout factories."
"Our nation has an education system that helps perpetuate inequity," he said. "We have to level the playing field."
Legend was joined onstage by three Richmond Community High School students, who asked the musician questions.
The evening opened with a performance by Amaranth Contemporary Dance, which in collaboration with VCU Dance opened with a tribute tthe Richmond 34.
"Equalizing the Lines: Prelude to a New Dream" featured choreography to the backdrop of video clips of young people and Richmond 34 members.
"It was like living in two worlds: a black world and a white world," former VUU president Allix B. James said of that era on video.
The push-pull movements of the dancers suggested that the quest for equality -- which often found expression in a march -- was often a dance
with an unwilling partner. But last night's dance ended with an interracial couple's embrace.
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_783e0c21-0ec4-59b5-8f63-e7933de66fd7.html
M. H. WEST & CO., INC
On February 22nd, 1960 34 Virginia Union students entered the lunch counter and Richmond Room at Thalhimers department store.
http://www.mhwest.com/2010/02/22/richmond-centerstage-honors-richmond-34
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
John Legend to commemorate sit-in with Richmond concert
By Melissa Ruggieri
John Legend is known for his charity work and philanthropic efforts almost as much as his Grammy-winning music.
So the singer-songwriter-pianist was an ideal choice to perform at today's "Sit-In-Stand Out" event at the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond CenterStage.
Legend's performance and Q&A session cap a six-day remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the Thalhimers Sit-In for Civil Rights.
On Feb. 22, 1960, a group of 34 Virginia Union University students were arrested after holding a sit-in protest at the "whites-only" lunch
counter at Thalhimers department store.
CenterStage now resides on the Thalhimers site.
Legend, 31, said in an interview last week that he is well-aware of the sit-ins during the civil-rights era -- though not the Richmond events
specifically -- and thought it was important to observe the movement.
"I've spent a lot of time listening to music all my life, and music from that era has been influential to me as a musician," Legend said. "[This event] really honors the legacy of the people who fought really hard, and it makes you appreciate the progress that has been made."
Legend first heard about the plans for Richmond's commemoration through Sheila Johnson, Virginia billionaire businesswoman, arts patron and co-founder of Black Entertainment Television.
"We're always inclined to say yes to her," Legend said with a laugh. "We try to help her whenever possible when it comes to the arts or
education in general."
His plans for tonight's show include speaking to the audience, performing several songs and fielding a Q&A session.
"These people struggled and faced adversity, but they believed in the idea that change is possible and they saw it through," Legend said.
"We should be doing the same things now when we see injustice."
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_0b6205f7-7916-586d-8bf9-ea9eb7e754cb.html
NBC-12, Richmond
http://www.nbc12.com/category/182900/the-richmond-34-thalhimers-sit-in-richmond-feb-22-1960
John Legend to commemorate sit-in with Richmond concert
By Melissa Ruggieri
John Legend is known for his charity work and philanthropic efforts almost as much as his Grammy-winning music.
So the singer-songwriter-pianist was an ideal choice to perform at today's "Sit-In-Stand Out" event at the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond CenterStage.
Legend's performance and Q&A session cap a six-day remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the Thalhimers Sit-In for Civil Rights.
On Feb. 22, 1960, a group of 34 Virginia Union University students were arrested after holding a sit-in protest at the "whites-only" lunch
counter at Thalhimers department store.
CenterStage now resides on the Thalhimers site.
Legend, 31, said in an interview last week that he is well-aware of the sit-ins during the civil-rights era -- though not the Richmond events
specifically -- and thought it was important to observe the movement.
"I've spent a lot of time listening to music all my life, and music from that era has been influential to me as a musician," Legend said. "[This event] really honors the legacy of the people who fought really hard, and it makes you appreciate the progress that has been made."
Legend first heard about the plans for Richmond's commemoration through Sheila Johnson, Virginia billionaire businesswoman, arts patron and co-founder of Black Entertainment Television.
"We're always inclined to say yes to her," Legend said with a laugh. "We try to help her whenever possible when it comes to the arts or
education in general."
His plans for tonight's show include speaking to the audience, performing several songs and fielding a Q&A session.
"These people struggled and faced adversity, but they believed in the idea that change is possible and they saw it through," Legend said.
"We should be doing the same things now when we see injustice."
http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_0b6205f7-7916-586d-8bf9-ea9eb7e754cb.html
NBC-12, Richmond
http://www.nbc12.com/category/182900/the-richmond-34-thalhimers-sit-in-richmond-feb-22-1960
FEBRUARY 20, 2010
WTOP-FM, Washington, DC
Events Commemorate Richmond Sit-ins
RICHMOND – Monday is the 50th anniversary of the arrests of the Richmond 34, a group of Virginia Union University students who conducted a sit-in at the then-segregated restaurant at the Thalhimer’s department store in downtown Richmond.
Lectures, plays, forums and concerts are being held in the days leading up to the anniversary of the event, which helped break down racial barriers in Richmond.
Today, a Student/Scholar Town Hall is being conducted at the L. Douglas Wilder Lecture Hall on the Virginia Union campus, 1500 N. Lombardy St. The town hall runs from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.; it is free and open to the public.
Tonight and on Saturday and Sunday, the VUU Players will perform the play “Lumpkin’s Jail,” by Gregory Thornewell. The performances will be in the VUU Belgian Building Theater. Tickets can be purchased at VUU.
The Gottwald Playhouse at Richmond CenterStage, where Thalhimer’s once stood, is the site for performances of “Othello” by the Richmond Shakespeare company and the African American Repertory Theatre. “Othello” opened Thursday and will run through Saturday night.
The highlight of the weekend will be the commemoration of a marker honoring the Richmond 34. The ceremony will be at 2:30 p.m. Sunday on the Virginia Union campus.
Several events are scheduled Monday. They include an education forum from 10 a.m. to noon in the Richmond CenterStage Carpenter Theatre. The forum will be moderated by Sheila Johnson, president of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics basketball team, and will feature representatives of the Richmond 34.
The celebration will come to a close Monday night with a 7 p.m. performance by R & B singer John Legend at the Carpenter Center.
For a complete listing of events, see www.vuu.edu/richmond_34/richmond_34_events.aspx
Copyright 2010 The Gainesville Times. All rights reserved.
by Marcos Chappell @ The Gainesville Times
http://wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1893519
Events Commemorate Richmond Sit-ins
RICHMOND – Monday is the 50th anniversary of the arrests of the Richmond 34, a group of Virginia Union University students who conducted a sit-in at the then-segregated restaurant at the Thalhimer’s department store in downtown Richmond.
Lectures, plays, forums and concerts are being held in the days leading up to the anniversary of the event, which helped break down racial barriers in Richmond.
Today, a Student/Scholar Town Hall is being conducted at the L. Douglas Wilder Lecture Hall on the Virginia Union campus, 1500 N. Lombardy St. The town hall runs from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.; it is free and open to the public.
Tonight and on Saturday and Sunday, the VUU Players will perform the play “Lumpkin’s Jail,” by Gregory Thornewell. The performances will be in the VUU Belgian Building Theater. Tickets can be purchased at VUU.
The Gottwald Playhouse at Richmond CenterStage, where Thalhimer’s once stood, is the site for performances of “Othello” by the Richmond Shakespeare company and the African American Repertory Theatre. “Othello” opened Thursday and will run through Saturday night.
The highlight of the weekend will be the commemoration of a marker honoring the Richmond 34. The ceremony will be at 2:30 p.m. Sunday on the Virginia Union campus.
Several events are scheduled Monday. They include an education forum from 10 a.m. to noon in the Richmond CenterStage Carpenter Theatre. The forum will be moderated by Sheila Johnson, president of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics basketball team, and will feature representatives of the Richmond 34.
The celebration will come to a close Monday night with a 7 p.m. performance by R & B singer John Legend at the Carpenter Center.
For a complete listing of events, see www.vuu.edu/richmond_34/richmond_34_events.aspx
Copyright 2010 The Gainesville Times. All rights reserved.
by Marcos Chappell @ The Gainesville Times
http://wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1893519
FEBRUARY 18, 2010
RVANEWS.COM
5 Things (to do this weekend)
1. Sit-in|Stand-out
Virginia Union University and Richmond CenterStage have teamed up to provide a series of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Richmond 34, a group of VUU students who staged (and were subsequently arrested for) a sit-in at the Thalhimers “Whites Only” lunch counter. Events include a chapel service led by Reverend Leroy M. Bray, Jr. (one of the Richmond 34), a commemoration marker ceremony at VUU, performances of Othello by Richmond Shakespeare and the African American Repertory Theatre, and an evening of reflection with John Legend. Locations, times, and ticket prices vary, so check out our list of scheduled events to learn more.
http://rvanews.com/features/5-things-67/25620
5 Things (to do this weekend)
1. Sit-in|Stand-out
Virginia Union University and Richmond CenterStage have teamed up to provide a series of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Richmond 34, a group of VUU students who staged (and were subsequently arrested for) a sit-in at the Thalhimers “Whites Only” lunch counter. Events include a chapel service led by Reverend Leroy M. Bray, Jr. (one of the Richmond 34), a commemoration marker ceremony at VUU, performances of Othello by Richmond Shakespeare and the African American Repertory Theatre, and an evening of reflection with John Legend. Locations, times, and ticket prices vary, so check out our list of scheduled events to learn more.
http://rvanews.com/features/5-things-67/25620
FEBRUARY 17, 2010
STYLE WEEKLY
Several events will honor the 50th anniversary of a historic Richmond civil rights event this week.
By Don Harrison
Several events will honor the 50th anniversary of a historic Richmond civil rights event this week. The program, titled “Sit In/Stand Out,” will feature conferences at Virginia Union University and special arts events, including a world premiere performance by Amaranth Contemporary Dance, at CenterStage. The celebration will culminate in an appearance Feb. 22 by national recording artist John Legend.
“At first, there was very little traction for this event and we had focused it around just a simple marker dedication,” says “Sit In/Stand Out”
chairman Jeff Sadler, a member of the associates board of CenterStage, the original site of the Thalhimers store where 34 VUU students staged a famous protest sit-in Feb. 22, 1960.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice, one of the original protestors, helped to broaden the focus when she teamed with Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, the
granddaughter of one of the Thalhimer brothers who ran the store at the time of the sit-in.
“These two had formed a friendship several years ago and had discussed the planning of a 50th anniversary commemoration” Sadler says. As for John Legend’s involvement, you can thank Loudon County entrepreneur Sheila Johnson. “She introduced us to John Legend’s personal manager,” Sadler says.
Starting Wednesday, more than a dozen surviving members of the Richmond 34 will participate in special conferences (a $250- to $300-per-plate luncheon will be held at CenterStage to help defray costs); they and the other protestors will be honored by name on two granite markers donated by Grappone and Sons.
http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=543F7225299A407EB1D639B6616BD470&AudID=307AACC9CB4748F1BF28EC3057EA1071
Several events will honor the 50th anniversary of a historic Richmond civil rights event this week.
By Don Harrison
Several events will honor the 50th anniversary of a historic Richmond civil rights event this week. The program, titled “Sit In/Stand Out,” will feature conferences at Virginia Union University and special arts events, including a world premiere performance by Amaranth Contemporary Dance, at CenterStage. The celebration will culminate in an appearance Feb. 22 by national recording artist John Legend.
“At first, there was very little traction for this event and we had focused it around just a simple marker dedication,” says “Sit In/Stand Out”
chairman Jeff Sadler, a member of the associates board of CenterStage, the original site of the Thalhimers store where 34 VUU students staged a famous protest sit-in Feb. 22, 1960.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice, one of the original protestors, helped to broaden the focus when she teamed with Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, the
granddaughter of one of the Thalhimer brothers who ran the store at the time of the sit-in.
“These two had formed a friendship several years ago and had discussed the planning of a 50th anniversary commemoration” Sadler says. As for John Legend’s involvement, you can thank Loudon County entrepreneur Sheila Johnson. “She introduced us to John Legend’s personal manager,” Sadler says.
Starting Wednesday, more than a dozen surviving members of the Richmond 34 will participate in special conferences (a $250- to $300-per-plate luncheon will be held at CenterStage to help defray costs); they and the other protestors will be honored by name on two granite markers donated by Grappone and Sons.
http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=543F7225299A407EB1D639B6616BD470&AudID=307AACC9CB4748F1BF28EC3057EA1071
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
RICHMOND.COM
Sit-In and Stand Out for Civil Rights
Feb. 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the Thalimers’ lunch counter sit-in, where 34 Virginia Union University students sat at the “Whites Only” lunch counter at ThalhimersDepartment Store and were refused service. Many feel that this event led to the start of the Civil Rights Movement in Richmond. Read more: (includes event listings): http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_be1e6c2c-eee0-501c-82b0-735fbce29e82.html
TOLEDO (OH) NEWS NOW
"Sit-In, Stand-Out" Commemorates Richmond 34
Fifty years ago next week, a group of black college students in Richmond took a
stand... Read more: http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/11987214/interview-sit-in-stand-out-commemorates-richmond-34?widgetId=12504&slideshowImageId=7
Sit-In and Stand Out for Civil Rights
Feb. 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the Thalimers’ lunch counter sit-in, where 34 Virginia Union University students sat at the “Whites Only” lunch counter at ThalhimersDepartment Store and were refused service. Many feel that this event led to the start of the Civil Rights Movement in Richmond. Read more: (includes event listings): http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/article_be1e6c2c-eee0-501c-82b0-735fbce29e82.html
TOLEDO (OH) NEWS NOW
"Sit-In, Stand-Out" Commemorates Richmond 34
Fifty years ago next week, a group of black college students in Richmond took a
stand... Read more: http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/11987214/interview-sit-in-stand-out-commemorates-richmond-34?widgetId=12504&slideshowImageId=7
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
1960 sit-in put Richmond on road to change
By Karin Kapsidelis
Fifty years ago, Elizabeth Johnson Rice was jailed for sitting where she wasn't supposed to -- the whites-only lunch counter at Thalhimers
department store.
Next weekend, she'll be staying with the granddaughter of the man who had her arrested.
Rice sees the friendship she has forged with Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt as a measure of how much has changed since Feb. 22, 1960, when she was one of 34 Virginia Union University students arrested for defying segregation in downtown Richmond.
"It's just sort of symbolic of the times we live in now," Rice said. "And it shows that things do change and people do grow."
For Smartt, having one of the protesters stay with her during events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the sit-in is "a really nice, full-circle ending to this story," she said. "It makes me feel we're heading in the right direction."
It's also a chance to learn "a broader spectrum," she said, of the story she grew up hearing about a protest that would end segregation in the
downtown shopping district.
That chapter in Richmond's racial history had an impact far beyond the city limits for years to come.
Rice's brother, who was also arrested at Thalhimers, would later refuse to sit in the black section of Richmond traffic court. The U.S. Supreme
Court in April 1963 overturned Ford T. Johnson Jr.'s contempt conviction and ordered the desegregation of all courtrooms. Two months later, the justices also overturned the trespassing convictions of Johnson, Rice and the other VUU students in the Thalhimers case.
That same month -- June 1963 -- Smartt's grandfather, William B. Thalhimer Jr., was alone in his office on a Saturday when his phone rang.
President John F. Kennedy was calling.
Thalhimer and other business leaders, including an executive from the neighboring Miller & Rhoads, would go to the White House to consult
as the president began his push for civil-rights legislation.
. . .
The idea that legislation was needed to end "legalized oppression," as Smartt called it, is hard for a younger generation to fathom.
"I can't get my head around what 1960 was like," said Smartt, who is 34.
It "sounds like something biblical," she said, not something from her parents' and grandparents' lifetime.
But it was very much the way of life for Richmond's black residents a generation ago.
The Rev. Leroy M. Bray, pastor of Christ Center in South Richmond, remembers how demeaning it was to shop in department stores that wouldn't allow black people to try on clothes or even return merchandize.
The water fountains were labeled "white" and "colored," and just so there would be no mistake, "the actual porcelain was white for the whites and black for the blacks," he said.
Bray was a 20-year-old VUU student when he decided to join a march of several hundred people from the campus on Lombardy Street to picket in front of stores along Broad.
The protesters, inspired by sit-ins three weeks earlier in Greensboro, N.C, had a mission -- to get themselves arrested in order to challenge segregation policies in court.
Two days before, they had failed in that goal when stores such as Woolworth's, People's and Grant's closed their lunch counters when the
protesters arrived.
On Feb. 22, the students returned, with some heading up to Thalhimers' swank fourth-floor Richmond Room and the others taking seats at the
lunch counter on the ground floor. Smartt's grandfather made the decision to call the police.
It was a scary moment for the students, Rice and Bray recalled. Their protest was to be nonviolent -- they'd had training so they wouldn't react
to the names that would be hurled at them.
But they had seen news coverage of attacks on civil-rights protesters in other Southern states and didn't know what might happen to them.
"I saw the police dogs and that really scared me," Rice said. She remembers a brown blur of police uniforms and the nose of a German shepherd at her legs.
She tried to concentrate her gaze on the signs on the lunch counter -- "I remember the pie being 25 cents a slice" -- and ignore the animosity around her.
Bray said he was the first of the protesters at the lunch counter to be arrested, and at that moment realized he'd been caught up in a movement but "I didn't have an exit plan."
As he worried about what would happen next, he looked up and saw civil-rights lawyer Oliver W. Hill Sr. -- who played a crucial role in the U.S.
Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 that outlawed school segregation -- going up the escalator.
He could understand the words that Hill mouthed to him.
"He said, 'Go on. It'll be all right. We'll be there,' and I felt better. I could see the exit," Bray said.
And the black community was there for the students. They gathered outside the jail to serve as witnesses should any harm come to the students.
But the arrests came without violence -- a testament both to the students' peaceful demeanor and the genteel image the city had of itself.
The Richmond 34, as they became known, were quickly bailed out with money raised by the NAACP and others.
A VUU sorority canceled its cotillion and used the funds instead to help the students. VUU Vice President Allix B. James, who would later become the university's president, and his wife, Susie, put up their house as collateral.
The protesters were taken to the Eggleston Hotel, where a celebration awaited, and Rice recalls being greatly relieved to see her parents there, smiling.
Rice and other students were worried about how their parents would react to their arrest because some had been warned not to participate.
But "everyone was applauding," she said. "History was made that day."
. . .
For the Thalhimer family, it was the beginning of a tense year.
Smartt, who interviewed her grandfather about the events for a book she is writing called "Finding Thalhimers," said he was blindsided by the
protest, even though similar sit-ins took place in North Carolina weeks earlier and were beginning to spread across the South.
Thalhimers already had begun a "quiet integration" process, she said. The store had the most liberal return policy for black customers and had
integrated the employee lunchroom in the 1950s.
Her grandfather, who died in 2005, was very sensitive to the issue, she said. He would tell her "we didn't choose to be born Jewish, and no one chose to be black or white."
She thinks he would have integrated years earlier but for the economic clout of his white clientele, who would have forced him out of business.
"He knew segregation was wrong," she said.
Allix James agrees and recalls meeting with Thalhimer in his office while students from his university were picketing on the sidewalks below.
Thalhimer "was very, very sympathetic" to the student protest of segregation, James said. "I'm pretty sure in his heart he did not go along with it."
The sit-in arrests spurred the General Assembly to take quick action to deter future protests. Three days after the arrests, emergency legislation was signed by Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. that increased the penalties for trespassing and added a conspiracy charge.
Richmond merchants felt the economic impact of nearly a year of boycotts and picketing. While the protests were more peaceful than in other
Southern cities, a photograph of Ruth N. Tinsley, the 59-year-old wife of the then state NAACP president, being dragged across Broad Street by two policemen with a police dog drew national attention.
Protest leaders rejected a compromise that would have desegregated first-floor lunch counters but not upper-level restaurants. Seven
stores, including Thalhimers, quietly desegregated lunch counters on main floors in August.
The 34 VUU students, who had each been fined $20 for trespassing, appealed their convictions.
In Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told a congressional panel that the Richmond protest was the work of "Communist Party
functionaries."
The atmosphere was so emotionally charged that Thalhimer had police protection posted at his home. Threats were made, but Smartt said it
wasn't known from which side they came.
She said her grandfather and Webster Rhoads, head of Miller & Rhoads department store, would sit in the back seat of a car in the parking deck their stores shared and discuss what to do.
"They knew the two stores had to be coordinated in what they did," she said.
Eventually, they decided to invite leaders of the black community to dine with them in the Thalhimers Richmond Room and the Miller &
Rhoads Tea Room.
Bray remembers the phone call he got that an agreement had been reached nearly a year after his arrest. "I got a call that it's over," he said. He and others were told to go to the Richmond Room to see if they would be served.
"We were served, and it was over," he said.
A couple of years later, Thalhimer also got a call, Smartt said. President Kennedy wanted Thalhimer to come to the White House as he sought
support from business leaders the week before he sent civil-rights legislation to Congress.
Smartt thinks it was at that point that her grandfather "realized what he had done was very significant." But it was something he never talked about "because it was a very sensitive time and there was so much
emotion."
. . .
The Thalhimers protest was significant not just for what it accomplished but for the leadership role assumed by students, said VUU history
professor Raymond Hylton.
As the students were arrested, one yelled to the crowd that "the students have set the flame" and challenged his elders "to put some oil on it and keep a blaze going."
Rice was invited to New York to appear on NBC's "Today" show to debate segregationists on "Why Negroes Deserve First-Class
Citizenship."
This week, their actions will be celebrated in a series of events called "Sit In/Stand Out" at VUU and Richmond CenterStage, the performing-arts center built on the site of the Thalhimers department store.
The 50th anniversary will be an opportunity to "reveal the truth of what happened" for a younger generation, Hylton said. For students at VUU today, the protest seems "as remote to them as World War II."
Rice, a science teacher in Washington, saw the story fading from history and came forward to rekindle interest at VUU.
She also staged a commemoration for the 44th anniversary at the by-then vacant Thalhimers building at Seventh and Broad streets.
It was there that she met Smartt, who recalls shivering in the cold "and hearing these incredible stories" about the protest at her family's
store.
By the end of that year, the building was demolished to make way for CenterStage.
Smartt, Rice, Bray, Johnson and other representatives of the Richmond 34 will gather there Feb. 22 for a forum with students on the impact of their protest.
Rice wants the students to understand "there's a story behind everything."
"There's something to be learned from everything that happened," she said. "And our nation is stronger for having been through this."
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_7ab7ff1a-6508-5e4c-9c76-612a72879bd3.html
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Student protest changed course of young man’s life
By Karin Kapsidelis
Ford Tucker Johnson Jr. was sitting in class at Harvard Law School when the professor began to discuss a U.S. Supreme Court ruling he knew well.
"How do you know so much about this case?" Johnson recalls his professor asking after he spoke up to clarify a few points.
It was "my one famous moment at Harvard," Johnson said, when he told the class he had been the plaintiff in the case that led to the
desegregation of courtrooms and other public facilities.
In 1963, Johnson was the successful plaintiff in two cases before the Supreme Court -- his appeals of a 1960 conviction for trespassing at the lunch counter at Thalhimers and a 1962 contempt conviction from a judge in Richmond traffic court.
While the first case was a planned protest designed to produce a test case to challenge restaurant segregation, his second conviction resulted from a spontaneous act of civil disobedience, he said.
Johnson was a senior at Virginia Union University when he had to go to traffic court because of expired tags on his car. He quickly took the first seat he came to, causing a buzz in the courtroom. The bailiff "said Move,' and I didn't know what he was talking about."
He was called before the judge, who ordered him to sit in the black section.
"My response was not to obey," Johnson said. He folded his arms -- in "a polite movement, not a resistant movement" -- and said he would rather stand.
For that, he was sent to the lockup.
By the time his case was decided by the Supreme Court, Johnson was serving in the newly created Peace Corps in Ghana.
After the Peace Corps, he went to Harvard Law School, giving up earlier plans to study medicine.
Johnson's parents -- his father was a dentist and mother a VUU professor -- were also active in the civil-rights movement, and his sister, Elizabeth Johnson Rice, was arrested with him at Thalhimers.
Johnson is now president of the Koba Institute in Silver Spring, Md., which provides services for children with emotional and behavioral problems.
He says his brushes with the Richmond legal system changed the course of his life in "a very fundamental way," leading him to pursue a career in law and his work on behalf of children.
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_e0b46073-1fd1-5c44-b134-4ec45c79c17d.html
1960 sit-in put Richmond on road to change
By Karin Kapsidelis
Fifty years ago, Elizabeth Johnson Rice was jailed for sitting where she wasn't supposed to -- the whites-only lunch counter at Thalhimers
department store.
Next weekend, she'll be staying with the granddaughter of the man who had her arrested.
Rice sees the friendship she has forged with Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt as a measure of how much has changed since Feb. 22, 1960, when she was one of 34 Virginia Union University students arrested for defying segregation in downtown Richmond.
"It's just sort of symbolic of the times we live in now," Rice said. "And it shows that things do change and people do grow."
For Smartt, having one of the protesters stay with her during events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the sit-in is "a really nice, full-circle ending to this story," she said. "It makes me feel we're heading in the right direction."
It's also a chance to learn "a broader spectrum," she said, of the story she grew up hearing about a protest that would end segregation in the
downtown shopping district.
That chapter in Richmond's racial history had an impact far beyond the city limits for years to come.
Rice's brother, who was also arrested at Thalhimers, would later refuse to sit in the black section of Richmond traffic court. The U.S. Supreme
Court in April 1963 overturned Ford T. Johnson Jr.'s contempt conviction and ordered the desegregation of all courtrooms. Two months later, the justices also overturned the trespassing convictions of Johnson, Rice and the other VUU students in the Thalhimers case.
That same month -- June 1963 -- Smartt's grandfather, William B. Thalhimer Jr., was alone in his office on a Saturday when his phone rang.
President John F. Kennedy was calling.
Thalhimer and other business leaders, including an executive from the neighboring Miller & Rhoads, would go to the White House to consult
as the president began his push for civil-rights legislation.
. . .
The idea that legislation was needed to end "legalized oppression," as Smartt called it, is hard for a younger generation to fathom.
"I can't get my head around what 1960 was like," said Smartt, who is 34.
It "sounds like something biblical," she said, not something from her parents' and grandparents' lifetime.
But it was very much the way of life for Richmond's black residents a generation ago.
The Rev. Leroy M. Bray, pastor of Christ Center in South Richmond, remembers how demeaning it was to shop in department stores that wouldn't allow black people to try on clothes or even return merchandize.
The water fountains were labeled "white" and "colored," and just so there would be no mistake, "the actual porcelain was white for the whites and black for the blacks," he said.
Bray was a 20-year-old VUU student when he decided to join a march of several hundred people from the campus on Lombardy Street to picket in front of stores along Broad.
The protesters, inspired by sit-ins three weeks earlier in Greensboro, N.C, had a mission -- to get themselves arrested in order to challenge segregation policies in court.
Two days before, they had failed in that goal when stores such as Woolworth's, People's and Grant's closed their lunch counters when the
protesters arrived.
On Feb. 22, the students returned, with some heading up to Thalhimers' swank fourth-floor Richmond Room and the others taking seats at the
lunch counter on the ground floor. Smartt's grandfather made the decision to call the police.
It was a scary moment for the students, Rice and Bray recalled. Their protest was to be nonviolent -- they'd had training so they wouldn't react
to the names that would be hurled at them.
But they had seen news coverage of attacks on civil-rights protesters in other Southern states and didn't know what might happen to them.
"I saw the police dogs and that really scared me," Rice said. She remembers a brown blur of police uniforms and the nose of a German shepherd at her legs.
She tried to concentrate her gaze on the signs on the lunch counter -- "I remember the pie being 25 cents a slice" -- and ignore the animosity around her.
Bray said he was the first of the protesters at the lunch counter to be arrested, and at that moment realized he'd been caught up in a movement but "I didn't have an exit plan."
As he worried about what would happen next, he looked up and saw civil-rights lawyer Oliver W. Hill Sr. -- who played a crucial role in the U.S.
Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 that outlawed school segregation -- going up the escalator.
He could understand the words that Hill mouthed to him.
"He said, 'Go on. It'll be all right. We'll be there,' and I felt better. I could see the exit," Bray said.
And the black community was there for the students. They gathered outside the jail to serve as witnesses should any harm come to the students.
But the arrests came without violence -- a testament both to the students' peaceful demeanor and the genteel image the city had of itself.
The Richmond 34, as they became known, were quickly bailed out with money raised by the NAACP and others.
A VUU sorority canceled its cotillion and used the funds instead to help the students. VUU Vice President Allix B. James, who would later become the university's president, and his wife, Susie, put up their house as collateral.
The protesters were taken to the Eggleston Hotel, where a celebration awaited, and Rice recalls being greatly relieved to see her parents there, smiling.
Rice and other students were worried about how their parents would react to their arrest because some had been warned not to participate.
But "everyone was applauding," she said. "History was made that day."
. . .
For the Thalhimer family, it was the beginning of a tense year.
Smartt, who interviewed her grandfather about the events for a book she is writing called "Finding Thalhimers," said he was blindsided by the
protest, even though similar sit-ins took place in North Carolina weeks earlier and were beginning to spread across the South.
Thalhimers already had begun a "quiet integration" process, she said. The store had the most liberal return policy for black customers and had
integrated the employee lunchroom in the 1950s.
Her grandfather, who died in 2005, was very sensitive to the issue, she said. He would tell her "we didn't choose to be born Jewish, and no one chose to be black or white."
She thinks he would have integrated years earlier but for the economic clout of his white clientele, who would have forced him out of business.
"He knew segregation was wrong," she said.
Allix James agrees and recalls meeting with Thalhimer in his office while students from his university were picketing on the sidewalks below.
Thalhimer "was very, very sympathetic" to the student protest of segregation, James said. "I'm pretty sure in his heart he did not go along with it."
The sit-in arrests spurred the General Assembly to take quick action to deter future protests. Three days after the arrests, emergency legislation was signed by Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. that increased the penalties for trespassing and added a conspiracy charge.
Richmond merchants felt the economic impact of nearly a year of boycotts and picketing. While the protests were more peaceful than in other
Southern cities, a photograph of Ruth N. Tinsley, the 59-year-old wife of the then state NAACP president, being dragged across Broad Street by two policemen with a police dog drew national attention.
Protest leaders rejected a compromise that would have desegregated first-floor lunch counters but not upper-level restaurants. Seven
stores, including Thalhimers, quietly desegregated lunch counters on main floors in August.
The 34 VUU students, who had each been fined $20 for trespassing, appealed their convictions.
In Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told a congressional panel that the Richmond protest was the work of "Communist Party
functionaries."
The atmosphere was so emotionally charged that Thalhimer had police protection posted at his home. Threats were made, but Smartt said it
wasn't known from which side they came.
She said her grandfather and Webster Rhoads, head of Miller & Rhoads department store, would sit in the back seat of a car in the parking deck their stores shared and discuss what to do.
"They knew the two stores had to be coordinated in what they did," she said.
Eventually, they decided to invite leaders of the black community to dine with them in the Thalhimers Richmond Room and the Miller &
Rhoads Tea Room.
Bray remembers the phone call he got that an agreement had been reached nearly a year after his arrest. "I got a call that it's over," he said. He and others were told to go to the Richmond Room to see if they would be served.
"We were served, and it was over," he said.
A couple of years later, Thalhimer also got a call, Smartt said. President Kennedy wanted Thalhimer to come to the White House as he sought
support from business leaders the week before he sent civil-rights legislation to Congress.
Smartt thinks it was at that point that her grandfather "realized what he had done was very significant." But it was something he never talked about "because it was a very sensitive time and there was so much
emotion."
. . .
The Thalhimers protest was significant not just for what it accomplished but for the leadership role assumed by students, said VUU history
professor Raymond Hylton.
As the students were arrested, one yelled to the crowd that "the students have set the flame" and challenged his elders "to put some oil on it and keep a blaze going."
Rice was invited to New York to appear on NBC's "Today" show to debate segregationists on "Why Negroes Deserve First-Class
Citizenship."
This week, their actions will be celebrated in a series of events called "Sit In/Stand Out" at VUU and Richmond CenterStage, the performing-arts center built on the site of the Thalhimers department store.
The 50th anniversary will be an opportunity to "reveal the truth of what happened" for a younger generation, Hylton said. For students at VUU today, the protest seems "as remote to them as World War II."
Rice, a science teacher in Washington, saw the story fading from history and came forward to rekindle interest at VUU.
She also staged a commemoration for the 44th anniversary at the by-then vacant Thalhimers building at Seventh and Broad streets.
It was there that she met Smartt, who recalls shivering in the cold "and hearing these incredible stories" about the protest at her family's
store.
By the end of that year, the building was demolished to make way for CenterStage.
Smartt, Rice, Bray, Johnson and other representatives of the Richmond 34 will gather there Feb. 22 for a forum with students on the impact of their protest.
Rice wants the students to understand "there's a story behind everything."
"There's something to be learned from everything that happened," she said. "And our nation is stronger for having been through this."
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_7ab7ff1a-6508-5e4c-9c76-612a72879bd3.html
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Student protest changed course of young man’s life
By Karin Kapsidelis
Ford Tucker Johnson Jr. was sitting in class at Harvard Law School when the professor began to discuss a U.S. Supreme Court ruling he knew well.
"How do you know so much about this case?" Johnson recalls his professor asking after he spoke up to clarify a few points.
It was "my one famous moment at Harvard," Johnson said, when he told the class he had been the plaintiff in the case that led to the
desegregation of courtrooms and other public facilities.
In 1963, Johnson was the successful plaintiff in two cases before the Supreme Court -- his appeals of a 1960 conviction for trespassing at the lunch counter at Thalhimers and a 1962 contempt conviction from a judge in Richmond traffic court.
While the first case was a planned protest designed to produce a test case to challenge restaurant segregation, his second conviction resulted from a spontaneous act of civil disobedience, he said.
Johnson was a senior at Virginia Union University when he had to go to traffic court because of expired tags on his car. He quickly took the first seat he came to, causing a buzz in the courtroom. The bailiff "said Move,' and I didn't know what he was talking about."
He was called before the judge, who ordered him to sit in the black section.
"My response was not to obey," Johnson said. He folded his arms -- in "a polite movement, not a resistant movement" -- and said he would rather stand.
For that, he was sent to the lockup.
By the time his case was decided by the Supreme Court, Johnson was serving in the newly created Peace Corps in Ghana.
After the Peace Corps, he went to Harvard Law School, giving up earlier plans to study medicine.
Johnson's parents -- his father was a dentist and mother a VUU professor -- were also active in the civil-rights movement, and his sister, Elizabeth Johnson Rice, was arrested with him at Thalhimers.
Johnson is now president of the Koba Institute in Silver Spring, Md., which provides services for children with emotional and behavioral problems.
He says his brushes with the Richmond legal system changed the course of his life in "a very fundamental way," leading him to pursue a career in law and his work on behalf of children.
http://www.richmond.com/news/article_e0b46073-1fd1-5c44-b134-4ec45c79c17d.html
FEBRUARY 11, 2010
THE BALTIMORE SUN
Remembering the "Richmond 34"
RICHMOND— In 1960, the tension from the civil rights movement is simmering throughout the south. Young black college students and some whites challenged the laws of segregation. Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/wtvr-richmond34-100211,0,7991527.story
Remembering the "Richmond 34"
RICHMOND— In 1960, the tension from the civil rights movement is simmering throughout the south. Young black college students and some whites challenged the laws of segregation. Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/wtvr-richmond34-100211,0,7991527.story
FEBRUARY 6, 2010
BUTTERMILK & MOLASSES
Richmond shifted 50 years ago this month
At times, progress has felt glacial, but it's pretty amazing to look back over the past five decades and think about the changes Richmond has experienced since 200 Virginia Union University students took to the streets, walked downtown and decided to have lunch at the Thalhimer's department store lunch counter. Or, decided to sit at the counter. The Richmond 34 were a group of students who returned two days later, and were arrested. Read more: http://floricane.typepad.com/buttermilk/2010/02/richmond-shifted-50-years-ago-this-month.html#comments
Richmond shifted 50 years ago this month
At times, progress has felt glacial, but it's pretty amazing to look back over the past five decades and think about the changes Richmond has experienced since 200 Virginia Union University students took to the streets, walked downtown and decided to have lunch at the Thalhimer's department store lunch counter. Or, decided to sit at the counter. The Richmond 34 were a group of students who returned two days later, and were arrested. Read more: http://floricane.typepad.com/buttermilk/2010/02/richmond-shifted-50-years-ago-this-month.html#comments
JANUARY 31, 2010
RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY EVENTS
Black Histoty Month - Exhibits and Lectures
February is Black History Month, and we have a wealth of exhibits, lectures and events in our fair city of Richmond. We are surrounded by this
history daily, but February is an ideal time to take in several new exhibits in Richmond and the surrounding area. Read more: http://richmondpl.blogspot.com/2010/01/black-history-month-exhibits-and.html
Black Histoty Month - Exhibits and Lectures
February is Black History Month, and we have a wealth of exhibits, lectures and events in our fair city of Richmond. We are surrounded by this
history daily, but February is an ideal time to take in several new exhibits in Richmond and the surrounding area. Read more: http://richmondpl.blogspot.com/2010/01/black-history-month-exhibits-and.html