Sit-ins happened when the timing was right
Thank you for your anniversary coverage of the sit-ins. It mirrors your courageous job 50 years ago, giving banner headlines to the first sit-in and responding to the long struggle ahead with fair, inclusive coverage.
I agree with your context, too: The sit-ins built upon the legacy of earlier brave leaders, were themselves an electrifying moment in our nation’s history, and speak today to send hope to all people in their quest for dignity.
Since my days as a Duke student 50 years ago, I have sought to understand why the Greensboro sit-ins triggered so much, while a similar protest at a Royal Ice Cream parlor in Durham in 1957, for example, failed to engender widespread moral outrage.
A friend who is a philosopher responded to my interest with a discourse on “Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.”
I have settled on an analogy based on geology: Deep beneath the surface, there are forces at work that we neither see nor understand, plates grinding against each other and building pressure, until one day the earth quakes along the line of an ancient fault.
Ed Rickards
New York City
Letter To The Editor
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