Free Double Victory by Cheryl Mullenbach

and others organized and participated in about a dozen sitins in department store restaurants between May and August 1944 in St. Louis. On May 15, 1944, Pearl Maddox and Birdie Beal Anderson—joined by three college students, Vora Thompson, Shermine Smith, and Ruth Mattie Wheeler—went into a popular department store and asked to be served in the store’s restaurant. The manager invited Vora Thompson to a private meeting in his office. He explained to Vora that she couldn’t be served because it would “create a disturbance” and “the American pattern would not permit the serving of Negro customers.” Vora told the manager that black men were suffering and dying in a war for democracy. Certainly, blacks should be allowed to eat where they chose in a democratic America. Vora said it was “time to begin training Americans to respect Americans. Our brothers and our sweethearts are suffering and dying all over the world to destroy Fascism, and you and I must get rid of it at home.”
    While Vora was in the meeting with the store manager, the other women were enjoying a soda and a sandwich in the restaurant. Their lunch had been purchased by a white man who had been in the protest group. The black women quietly atetheir lunch at the counter and left. Vora’s visit with the store manager failed to change the store’s policy of discrimination. The manager and waiters continued to make it clear that black diners were not welcome at the lunch counter.
    In July, 55 women enjoyed ice cream at a department store restaurant in St. Louis. Forty of the women were black. Fifteen were white women. The white women had purchased the ice cream and given it to the black women. Sometimes the sit-ins by the black women of St. Louis caused a stir. At another sit-in at a drugstore counter, for instance, Shermine Smith had eaten only part of her sandwich when the manager took the sandwich from her hands, grabbed Shermine by the arm, and lifted her from her seat. Shermine remembered what she had been taught. She met the attack with nonviolent resistance. She didn’t kick, or scream, or resist the manager. She didn’t say anything as he escorted her from the store.
    Usually when these black women entered a restaurant the waiters refused to serve them. Sometimes the white customers complained and left because they didn’t want to eat with black people. When that happened, the managers sometimes closed the stores for the day—which meant the stores were losing money.
    As the summer of 1944 wore on in St. Louis, the protestors learned new tactics. They started moving their sit-ins from Mondays to Saturdays. The weekends were busier, and closing the restaurants caused more loss of money for the store owners and white workers.
    Sometimes the police were called to remove the protestors. The women began to plan sit-ins at more than one restaurant at the same time to cause delays in the police arrivals. That gave the protestors more time to sit at the counters—and more time for people to notice them.
    And like Hattie Duvall, the women used signs to call attention to their cause. As they silently walked back and forth in front of the stores where they were refused service, they carried big signs:
    WHY CAN’T I EAT HERE?
    WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY MEAN TO YOU?
    A NAZI’S BULLET KNOWS NO PREJUDICE
    MY MOTHER SERVES, MY BROTHER SERVES, MAY I BE SERVED?
    Maybe white people who saw them would think about the four freedoms that President Roosevelt had spoken about in his State of the Union address in 1941. Maybe they would think about the injustice of discrimination when they witnessed black people quietly and politely asking for basic civil rights. Maybe they would think that the contributions black Americans were making to the war effort should give them the right to eat where they wanted. However, it was long after the war ended that black customers were finally welcomed at St. Louis lunch