| dc.description.abstract | From February to May 1960, a racially and socioeconomically diverse coalition of students and clergy members staged nonviolent sit-ins in downtown Nashville with the goal of desegregating public spaces in the city. In these demonstrations, the activists displayed a uniformed commitment to the precepts of nonviolent direct-action. Before the activists became full-fledged demonstrators, however, they began as students of nonviolent philosophy in a series of workshops led by James M. Lawson, Jr. that started in the spring of 1958. This thesis argues that the Nashville Nonviolent Movement’s nonviolent direct-action workshops provided the necessary training and framework for the successful 1960 sit-ins. In other words, were it not for Lawson’s workshops, the students and clergy would not have successfully operationalized the movement that desegrated the downtown lunch counters. It was these workshops, then, that unified the diverse group of students and adult clergy members into one cohesive unit fighting the same battle with the same tactics. Equipped with a powerful teacher in Lawson and his interfaith curriculum, the group developed a commitment to the philosophy and praxis of nonviolent direct-action. Rather than focus on the events of 1960, like other secondary literature has done, this thesis focuses on the workshops that preceded them. Thus, it illustrates how the sit-ins were not spontaneous events, but rather reflections of months of highly disciplined training and education in nonviolence from Lawson. In effect, this thesis provides a combined sociological and historical analysis that gives credit to the organization and diffusion of the sit-ins, while also highlighting the individual trajectories that led the students and clergy to the movement. | en_US |
