Sit-In Marker

State officials on Monday unveiled a new historical marker commemorating a 1957 sit-in at a racially segregated restaurant in Durham. On June 23, 1957, seven black people sat in the whites-only section of the Royal Ice Cream parlor in Durham and ordered ice cream. After refusing to leave, they were arrested and charged with trespassing. They were later found guilty and fined $10 each. Their case was appealed through the state courts -- unsuccessfully -- and ultimately referred to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear it.
Three surviving members of the sit-in attended the unveiling of the highway historical marker at Union Baptist Church in Durham. Later this year, the maker will be placed near the former site of the Royal Ice Cream parlor, a brick building at North Roxboro and Dowd streets torn down in 2006. The Royal Ice Cream sit-in preceded by about three years a better-known protest in Greensboro. In that protest, four black college students sat down at the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth's and asked to be served. They were refused, and were credited for launching sit-ins across North Carolina and the South as a nonviolent protest against segregation. (Lisa Rossi, THE HERALD-SUN, 6/24/08).