government, the students are finally admitted and escorted to classes by soldiers. Black college students in the early 1960’s had much in common — particularly the memory of Little Rock in 1957, where students their own age had defied white mobs to integrate Central High School. This generation of black students entered colleges with high hopes. They felt they could make a difference, and they wanted changes in all areas of human rights. Black students held sit-ins, requesting service at ‘white-only’ lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Within ten days the sit-ins spread to 15 southern cities. The mayor of Nashville admits that discrimination at lunch counters is morally wrong, and three weeks later black customers are served for the first time at formerly all-white lunch counters. Out of this student movement, the national Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is formed. SNCC becomes a new leader in the struggle for social reform.The focus of black protest begins to change from challenging specific laws to challenging a broad range of racial and economic inequities. In summary, the lunch counter sit-ins, the formation of SNCC by students who led sit-ins, the impact of the sit-ins on the Kennedy–Nixon presidential campaign, and the freedom rides of 1961 to eliminate segregation in interstate travel.No Easy Walk depicts three major Movements. In Albany, Georgia, in 1961, the Movement’s nonviolent tactics are tested when the police chief challenges the strategy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the SCLC. In Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, children join the civil rights struggle and protesters face violent opposition. Also in 1963, the March on Washington reveals broad support for the civil rights movement. The positive feelings brought about by the march, however, undercut 16 days later, when racial violence flares once again. A bomb rocks the 16th Street Baptist Church. ...
