The Royal Ice Cream sit-in was a nonviolent protest in Durham, North Carolina, that led to a court case on the legality of segregated facilities. The demonstration took place on June 23, 1957, when a group of African American protesters, led by Reverend Douglas E. Moore, entered the Royal Ice Cream Parlor and sat in the section reserved for white patrons."Negroes Fined In Dairy Bar Case," The Durham Morning Herald, June 24, 1957. When asked to move, the protesters refused and were arrested for trespassing. The case was appealed unsuccessfully to the County and State Superior Courts."Ice Cream Bar Case: Six Get Stiffer Rap on Appeal," The Carolina Times, July 20, 1957, 1.Jose Stuntz, "White Jury Selected To Try 'White Side' Ice Cream Case," The Durham Morning Herald, July 17, 1957."Negroes Lose In Trespass Case Appeal," the Durham Morning Herald, January 11, 1958.
The sit-in sparked debates within the African American communities in Durham about the strategies of civil rights activism. It also helped to spark future protests such as the Greensboro sit-ins and to promote coordination among African American civil rights activists across the Southeast.
Historical context In 1896, the United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation of public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". The separation in practice led to inferior conditions for African Americans, especially in the Southern states.
Meanwhile, Durham had a reputation throughout the South as a "unique town… that is more liberal than what you would expect in a Southern state," according to Durham native and civil rights leader Pauli Murray. In Durham, racial conflicts were arguably less severe than in other Southern towns and African Americans enjoyed more opportunities, including in the city's many tobacco plants. Prominent leaders established their own businesses and developed a prosperous black neighborhood called the Hayti District, which had its own store, theaters, restaurants and hospital. However, as in much of the South, Jim Crow laws were still rooted in Durham, with segregation resulting in inferior facilities and housing, fewer employment opportunities for African Americans. Separated by the city's railroad tracks, black and white neighborhoods contrasted greatly in standards of living.NCMCC, North Carolina and the Negro (North Carolina Mayors' Co-operating Committee, 1964), 71
Events and sentiments leading to the sit-in
In Durham, the struggle to end racial segregation was spurred by the creation of the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs (DCNA) in 1935.Oral History Interview with Conrad Odell Pearson, April 18, 1979. Interview H-0218. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During the 1930s and 1940s, the DCNA helped raise the number of blacks registered to vote."Durham's Civil Rights Heritage: Durham Committee on Negro Affairs", The Herald-Sun, March 9, 2013 It also worked to increase job opportunities for blacks and to promote black candidates for elected and appointed positions in Durham. However, after World War II, much of the progress in blacks' professional advancement was reversed, and many from the young generation were forced back into lower-wage positions. At the same time, this younger generation was also becoming dissatisfied with the DCNA's mild, pacifistic approach to the problem of segregation in Durham. A week before the sit-in, Louis E. Austin, editor of Durham's African American newspaper Carolina Times and a supporter of Moore's, wrote: "This newspaper senses a stagnation that is beginning to creep over the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs which, if allowed to continue, is certain to spell its doom…. The DCNA is becoming too high-brow, too soft and too compromising." Austin continued in this editorial to call for "new blood, new faces and new ideas".
Rev. Douglas E. Moore, a pastor at the Asbury Temple United Methodists Church, had been active in the desegregation movement in Durham during the 1950s. Prior to the sit-in, he had petitioned the City Council for an end to segregation at Durham Public Library and the Carolina Theater. On June 13, 1957, he and his family attempted to gain admission to the all-white Long Meadow Park swimming pool. When they were denied, he immediately appealed unsuccessfully to city recreation officers.
Role of the Black Church
Rev. Moore studied Theology at Boston University, where he was a classmate of Martin Luther King Jr. In an October 3, 1956 letter to King, Moore proposed that "[a] regional group which uses the power of nonviolence would help give us direction on national movements". Like other religious leaders of the era, Moore recognized the central role of the church within black communities, particularly in organizing political movements. Sociologist Aldon Morris has supported this view of the church in relation to community-building, stating: "The church was functioning as the institutional vanguard of a mass based black movement". Long before the Royal Ice Cream Sit-in, community leaders such as Moore began to form alliances in order to promote a national movement. Using the church as an organizational base, they started to train young activists to be "professional" non-violent protesters. This practice was later noted by one of Moore's activist compatriots, Gordon Carey, who stated: "…When we reached these cities we went directly to the movement oriented churches." According to Carey, these churches were selected because they were "where the protest activities were being planned and organized."
In 1957 the organizers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) sent out a call to fellow clergymen of the South to organize their congregations and local communities for collective protest. Around this time, Rev. Moore was rallying a group of young activists called "ACT", which included the Royal Ice Cream Sit-in participants. They met Sunday afternoons at Asbury Temple United Methodist Church, where Moore served as pastor, to talk about how to "push the envelope of Jim Crow’s Law."
Sit-in and trial
At approximately 6:45PM on June 23, 1957, Rev. Moore led seven attendees from his Sunday session at Ashbury United into the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor, located nearby at the corner of Roxboro and Dowd Streets (1000 N. Roxboro Street). The group entered through the back door, sat in the section reserved for white patrons, and asked to be served. When busboy David Champion asked the group to move to the section reserved for black patrons, Moore asked to speak to the manager. The owner, Louis Coletta, then appeared and asked the group to either move to the other section or to leave; when the group refused, Coletta called the police. One member of the group left the premises before the police arrived. Police Lieutenant Wallace Upchurch led several officers in the arrest of the remaining seven. Now known as "the Royal Seven," the group included Mary Elizabeth Clyburn, Vivian Jones, Virginia Williams, Claude Glenn, Jesse W. Gray, and Melvin Willis, in addition to Rev. Moore."Color Line Cracking Attempt Nets Fines," The Durham Morning Herald, June 25, 1957.
At the Durham Recorder's Court the following day, the protesters were convicted of trespassing and fined 10 dollars each plus court costs. They were represented by William A.("Billy") Marsh Jr., a Durham Civil Rights attorney. They immediately appealed the case to the Durham County Superior Court. On July 16, 1957, after a 24-minute deliberation, the all-white jury of the Superior Court upheld the guilty verdict and fined the protesters an additional 25 dollars each. The case moved up to the State Supreme Court, where the protesters again lost their case on January 10, 1958. Associate Justice William B. Rodman said the 14th Amendment prohibits discriminatory actions by states but "erects no shield against merely private conduct, however, discriminatory or wrongful." The group then appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear their case.
In a 1957 interview, Moore maintained that the sit-in had not been a planned protest, stating: "we went to the ice cream parlor for ice cream, nothing else." However, a later source indicates that Moore may have deliberately chosen Royal Ice Cream as a protest venue because of its location in a predominantly black neighborhood; this source quotes him thusly: "I thought I could isolate them in the black community."Naomi Kaufman, "Durham Sit-in Helped Change Racial Patterns," Daily Independent, 16 December 1979, 6E.
Sparked by the Royal Ice Cream incident, local protests continued in and around Durham for years, mainly led and inspired by Rev. Moore and Floyd McKissick, a black attorney and prominent community leader. They also began a six-year struggle to integrate the parlor. This struggle culminated in 1963, when Coletta sold the business and Royal Ice Cream became integrated.
Short-term impacts
This first attempt at desegregation provoked a controversy within the black community in Durham, because the young activists threatened the delicate balance that had been cautiously maintained by the leadership of DCNA. Other well-established organizations such as Durham's black Ministerial Alliance and the Durham NAACP also criticized Moore's "radical" efforts. At that time, the local NAACP was still fighting for a prolonged legal struggle against Durham's school segregation, and worried that losing the case might set a dangerous legal precedent and also divert the organization's energy. In brief, the more experienced black leaders in Durham viewed the sit-in as a premature and risky act led by a radical, young outsider.
Despite all these initial doubts, the 1957 sit-in sparked within the Durham black community a serious debate on strategies for future protests. The Durham Committee on Negro Affairs’ Economic Committee, headed by Floyd McKissick and Nathaniel White Sr., discussed whether to launch a boycott of the ice cream parlor. However, several committee members questioned the approach, because the owner of Royal Ice Cream Parlor, Louis Coletta, was an Italian Immigrant. Even Rev. Moore himself, who supported the boycott proposal, admitted that Coletta was "a member of a minority group" and that his parlor might not be the ideal target.Douglas Moore, interviewed by anonymous, Duke University Oral History Program Collection, January 28, 1978. Although DCNA and other organizations did not back up the protesters, the sit-in did prompt them to reevaluate their roles in dismantling Jim Crow. It also encouraged community-wide black boycotts and direct actions, which were forerunners of later collective movements.