John Robert Lewis, the group's leader, is carried to a waiting police paddy wagon. The arrests came after the three failed to obey police orders to move away from the restaurant's entrance on Church Street.
Dr. David Kotelchuck, left, assistant professor of physics at Vanderbilt University, and a member of the sit-in group, ducks as Bobby Gene Taylor, restaurant employee, swings at him during a demonstration in front of Herschel's Tic Toc Restaurant on Church Street. Nashville policemen arrived a few minutes later and things simmered down.
Thousands of Negroes jam the sidewalks outside Nashville city court where Negro and white students are being tried on charges stemming from three day's earlier lunch counter demonstrations at five downtown stores. Many of the Negroes sang spirituals as they awaited news of the trials. Police estimated the crowd at 2000.
A group of 30 demonstrators, mostly black college students, try to gain admittance to the Tennessee Theater downtown Nashville Feb. 22, 1961. Police allowed a group of white youths to stand opposite the group and they whistled "Dixie" through rolled-up newspapers and hurled verbal insults at the demonstrators until they broke up the jeering youths. Rev. J. Metz Rollins Jr., who aids the group, was one of those hit by flying rocks.
Each time a customer would try to make his way through the line of sit-in demonstrators to get inside the B & W Cafeteria, Nashville police would start pushing against the line and the blacks would push back.
Some of the approximately 200 high school-age students cross Church Street and Fifth Ave. N., as they marched through the downtown area to the Metro Jail, where they demonstrated against the arrested of civil rights protesters earlier in the week.
Anti-segregation demonstrators march in the vicinity of the downtown area March 23, 1963 to protest racial discrimination in Nashville. In the foreground left, with the "Freedom March" sign, is John Lewis, chairman of the Student Central Committee of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, sponsors of the movement.
A group of 18 Negroes and whites picketed the State Capitol and tried to see Gov. Buford Ellington to seek reinstatement of 14 "Freedom Riders" dismissed from Tennessee A & I State University in June.
Some of the black high school students that joined 600 youths in downtown Nashville to demonstrate at restaurants, department stores and the Metropolitan Courthouse. Principals of two black high schools said that their absences will be recorded as "unexcused."
Negro students sing in front of the Nashville Police Department as they protest what they called police brutality in a racial clash two nights earlier. The Negroes criticized "inadequate" police protection and called for qualified Negro personnel to "replace incompetent officers on the police force."
A few people, foreground, from the State Capitol, watch a group of people marching to the Capitol in sympathy with the mourners of the victims of Sunday's Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls.
With a Nashville police car sitting out front, a group of students picketed an H.G. Hill Store at 16th and Grand July 18, 1961. They are protesting the grocery chain's hiring practices, which does not hire black clerks in their five stores each located in major black neighborhoods.
Some of the 123 anti-segregation demonstrators walk pass the McKendree Methodist Church as they march through downtown Nashville during a 75-minute stand-in at four Church Street theaters Feb. 24, 1961.
Like a giant serpent, the line of Negro college demonstrators winds its way around the courthouse area, coming out from Jefferson street and James Robertson boulevard. The Negroes marching three abreast, in a line that stretched ten blocks.
Black church leaders and other demonstrators huddle under umbrellas as they participate in a "prayer vigil" at Metropolitan Courthouse. The group stood for an hour in the rain to petition local government leaders "to provide justice and equality for all Nashville citizens."
Errol Groves, center, holds the hand of his mother, Iridell Groves, as they walk to Buena Vista School on first day of desegregated in Nashville's schools.
Nashville police arrest a marcher and a downtown spectator after a scuffle developed during demonstration. Joseph Frank Tanksley, right, bleeds from cuts received after he fell into a mirror beside Cross Keys Restaurant. Tanksley and Vencen Horsley, left, were charged with fighting and disorderly conduct. Lt. C.P. Lynch, center was arresting officer.
A group of Negroes tried to see Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington to seek reinstatement of 14 "Freedom Riders" dismissed from Tennessee A & I State University in June after their convictions on breach of peace charges at Jackson, Miss. The group waited outside the governor's office, but Ellington left his office by a side door and didn't see the protesters.
Black demonstrators race back to the safety of their First Baptist Church after the day-long protest marches downtown May 8, 1963. One of the leaders of the demonstrators, Rev. J. Metz Rollins, center, guides the protesters back home. After they returned from the final march, a group of about 30 white youths began throwing rocks and soft drink bottles.
Fellow civil rights demonstrators carry away an injured marcher after violence erupted when club-swinging police surged through the marchers at downtown Church Street.