Pensacola lunch counter sit-ins; civil rights leader to be honored with historical marker


  • April 9, 2015
  • /   Mike Ensley
  • /   training-development
In February 1960, four African-American college students in Greensboro, N.C., went to the Woolworth’s lunch counter and did something that would spark a nationwide movement for social change. They sat down. They were asked to leave, but didn’t budge. Soon, they were joined by hundreds of others – students, church congregations, community members, civil rights activists – and on July 25, after six months of protest, the segregation of the lunch counter ended. Across the country, many were inspired by the events in Greensboro. Sit-ins began to take place and hasten the end of segregation. In Pensacola, one of those inspired was the minister of St. Paul’s Methodist Church, the Rev. William Curtis Dobbins. [sidebar]Want to go? WHAT: Unveiling of the historic marker highlight the Rev. William Curtis Dobbins and the NAACP Youth Council's effort to desegregate Pensacola lunch counters. WHEN: 3 p.m. Saturday, April 25. WHERE: At the corner of Palafox and Garden streets. Presented by the Pensacola NAACP and Pensacola Sit-In Commemorative Group[/sidebar] Dobbins had come to Pensacola from Montgomery. There, while the pastor of another church, he had lived next door to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sarah Jonas, who completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of West Florida on the Pensacola sit-in movement last December, says that Dobbins learned a lot from King. “Rev. Dobbins was trained by Dr. King himself,” Jonas said. “Dr. King taught him that protests would be effective only if they were nonviolent.” Dobbins would use that knowledge to lead marches against segregation down Palafox Street and help plan the NAACP Youth Council’s sit-ins at the Woolworth’s, Newberry and Kress lunch counters in the downtown Pensacola department stores. “As I interviewed people about Rev. Dobbins, the thing kept coming up was what a phenomenal man he was,” Jonas said. “He truly believed in nonviolence.” Hearing from the history makers Della Redmon was 17 years old when she began working on the cause of civil rights; she was 19 in 1961 when she participated in the Pensacola sit-ins. She remembers Dobbins as a mentor and a leader. “He was a brilliant man,” Redmon said. “He was concerned for his congregation and his community and he was very trustworthy.” Redmon said that Dobbins was instrumental in her being able to participate in the sit-ins that would change not only her life, but also the lives of the entire African-American community in Pensacola. “My father was very protective. He didn’t want me to be part of the protests,” she said. “Rev. Dobbins came to our home and spoke to him personally and my father agreed to let me take part.” Newberry3 Redmon's father’s concerns turned out to be well placed — while the protesters were non-violent, the people that opposed them often weren’t. “The white patrons would shout at us and call us the ‘n-word’ and 'monkeys',” Redmon said. “It was very scary for all of us.” But the intimidation didn’t stop there. “I witnessed police officers picking up small items in the store and slipping them into the pockets of the young men who were watching over those of us sitting at the counter,” Redmon said. “Then, they would arrest them for shoplifting.” The arrests would spur Dobbins into to action to get the protesters out of jail as quickly as possible. “When someone was arrested, I would be sent with a check from Rev. Dobbins to Benboe Funeral Home, who would cash it,” Redmon said. “We would then take it to the police station to pay their bail.” There was also physical intimidation against the protesters. Among the attacks they endured were being pricked by knives, sprayed with insecticide and burned with cigarettes. Redmond herself was the victim of one incident. “I was spit on while sitting at the counter,” Redmon said. “People would try to provoke us and make us angry so that we would react, but we just turned away and kept sitting.” [sidebar]Do you have photos of the 1961 Pensacola lunch counter sit-ins? Pensacola Today and the Pensacola Sit-In Commemorative Group would like to help preserve them. Please e-mail [email protected] to share them.[/sidebar] After the incident, Dobbins wouldn’t let Redmon participate in the sit-ins anymore for her safety, but she continued to work for change alongside him and the other members of the NAACP Youth Council. Something else changed in Redmon’s life in June 1961 — she got married. And as a Navy wife, she left Pensacola in August when her husband was transferred. “I never got to see the integration of the lunch counters in Pensacola,” she said. “But my relatives kept me informed of what was happening.” Honoring their commitment Dobbins and the NAACP Youth Council members will be honored on April 25 with the unveiling of a historical marker at the corner of Palafox and Garden Streets in downtown Pensacola. Dobbins died in 1983, but Jonas, who helped start the drive and raise the money for the marker, says both his wife and daughter will be present for the ceremony, as will as other guests. Twenty-five of the NAACP Youth Council members who participated in the sit-ins are coming from across the country to be here, Jonas said. “This is the first time many of them they have been together in 55 years,” Jonas said. Redmon says she is excited to see the Youth Council members, but it will be an emotional experience. “I’m don’t know how I am going to keep it together,” Redmon said. “I have wondered about them for many years. It’s amazing to me that some of us didn’t go off our rocker after what we went through.” Redmon is generous in her praise for Jonas’ role in getting the marker project going and her willingness to share the history of the sit-ins. “When she first came to interview me, I was so impressed,” she said. “Here was this young, white woman who was not from the area, willing to take on this story that needed to be told. She is a gem.” Jonas said that the whole movement inspired her. “These things didn’t happen all that long ago and yet I feel that many young people are so disconnected from it,” Jonas said. “Racial equality was at the core of the work I was doing in school and taking on this project really made me question myself on how I felt and where I stood.” As far as her role in creating change, Redmon is proud of what was accomplished, but believes there is still work to be done. “I feel really good about the part that I had in making change happen,” she said. “The situation is certainly much better today, but we’re still not there yet. Racism is still alive in America – and Pensacola.”
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