SAVANNAH, Ga. () — Sunday marks 65 years since the first sit-in took place in Savannah on Broughton Street. It was the start of the fight for equality and an end to segregation in Savannah.

Carolyn Quilloin, Joan Tyson and Ernest Robinson were greeted with comments like, ‘You’re not supposed to be here and you know it.’ when they walked into Levy’s department store and sat at the lunch counter to order food. The three were the first to practice sit-ins, a form of protest against segregation. They were also the first to be arrested, which sparked the 16-month-long boycott of downtown shopping led by the NAACP.

Vaughnette Goode-Walker is the museum director of the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum in Savannah. “The law was not on their side at this point because the law said if people come in at that time here in Georgia and you didn’t want to wait on them or you didn’t want to serve them, you didn’t have to.”  

Former Mayor of Savannah Otis Johnson went to school with one of the women participating in the sit-in. He says if it wasn’t for their bravery we wouldn’t be where we are today. “I directly benefited from the desegregation of this community. I could now sit at lunch counters and eat. I didn’t have to stand at the end of the counter or take out of the schools.  Became desegregated in 1963.  I was the first to go to Armstrong. Nineteen others went to two schools in Savannah, Savannah High, which was on Washington Avenue and Groves High, which was on Highway 21. So, we benefited from the movement and it paved the way for my career.”

The movement was the start of eliminating Jim Crow and uniting the community. Something we all benefit from in today’s society.

Goode-Walker says, “All these places were segregated and the law had to be upheld by those who were enforce of the law. I’ll put it that way. But the protests actually helped change that law. They made a difference. They made a change.”