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A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people nonviolently occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change.

Process[link]

In sit-ins, protesters usually seat themselves at some strategic location (inside a restaurant, in a street to block it, in a government or corporate office, and so on). They remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met. Sit-ins have historically been a highly successful form of protest because they cause disruption that draws attention to the protest and by proxy the protesters' cause. They are a non-violent way to effectually shut down an area or business. The forced removal of protesters, and sometimes the use of violence against them, often arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators reaching their goal.

History[link]

Civil Rights Movement[link]

Sit-ins were an integral part of the nonviolent strategy of civil disobedience and mass protests that eventually led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended legally-sanctioned racial segregation in the United States and also passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that struck down many racially-motivated barriers used to deny voting rights to non-whites.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) conducted sit-ins as early as the 1940s. Ernest Calloway refers to Bernice Fisher as "Godmother of the restaurant 'sit-in' technique."^[2] In August, 1939, African-American attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized a sit-in at the then-segregated Alexandria, Virginia library.^[3] Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor delegates had a brief, spontaneous lunch counter sit-in during their 1947 Columbus, Ohio convention.^[4].

In one of the earliest racially-connected sit-ins, followers of Father Divine and the International Peace Mission Movement joined with the Cafeteria Workers Union, Local 302, in September 1939 to protest racially unfair hiring practices at New York's Shack Sandwich Shops, Inc. According to the New York Times, Sep 23, 1939, "‎"On Thursday between 75 and 100 followers showed up at the restaurant at Forty-first Street and Lexington Avenue, where most of the strike activity has been concentrated, and groups went into the place, purchased five-cent cups of coffee, and conducted what might be described as a kind of customers' nickel sit down strike. Other patrons were unable to find seats."^[5]

With the encouragement of Melvin B. Tolson and James L. Farmer, students from Wiley and Bishop Colleges organized the first sit-ins in Texas in the rotunda of the Harrison County Courthouse in Marshall, Texas. This sit-in directly challenged the oldest White Citizens Party in Texas and would culminate in the reversal of Jim Crow laws in the state and the desegregation of postgraduate studies in Texas by the Sweatt v. Painter (1950) verdict.

The 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-ins[link]

The first organized lunch-counter sit-in for the purpose of integrating segregated establishments began in July 1958 in Wichita, Kansas at Dockum Drugs, a store in the old Rexall chain.^[6] In early August the drugstore became integrated. A few weeks later on August 19, 1958 in Oklahoma City a nationally recognized sit-in at the Katz Drug Store lunch counter occurred. The Oklahoma City Sit-in Movement was led by NAACP Youth Council leader Clara Luper, a local high school teacher, and young local students, including Luper's eight-year old daughter, who suggested the Sit-in be held. The group quickly desegregated the Katz Drug Store lunch counters. It took several more years, but she and the students, using the tactic, integrated all of Oklahoma City's eating establishments. Today, in downtown Wichita, Kansas, stands a statue depicting a waitress at a counter serving people honors this pioneering sit-in.

The 1960 Greensboro and Nashville Sit-ins[link]

Following the Oklahoma City sit-ins, the tactic of non-violent student sit-ins spread. The Greensboro Sit-In at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960 launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation.^[7] Within weeks, sit-in campaigns had begun in nearly a dozen cities, primarily targeting Woolworth's and S. H. Kress and other stores of other national chains.^[8]

The largest, and best organized of these sit-in campaigns was the already ongoing, in terms of its planning and groundwork, Nashville sit-ins. They involved hundreds of participants, and led to the successful desegregation of Nashville lunch counters.^[9] Most of the participants in the Nashville sit-ins were college students, and many, such as Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, and C.T. Vivian, went on to lead, strategize, and direct almost every aspect of the nation's Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The students of the Historically black colleges and universities in the city played a critical role in implementing the Nashville sit-ins.

See also[link]

• Bed-In, peace campaigns by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969
• Die-in
• Human Be-In
• Teach-in
• Work-in
• Occupation (protest)
• Sitdown strike

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sit-ins

• Award Winning Documentary: "February One" tells the inspiring story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins that helped revitalize the Civil Rights Movement
• Sit-In: A Tactical Analysis, By Aaron Kreider – Essay based on research on student sit-ins.
• National Young Lords- Brief notes on the origins of the Young Lords
• Almost-Forgotten History – Story of the Wichita Dockum sit-ins
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans Civil Rights Movement Veterans ~ History, personal stories, and photos of the Freedom Movement

Sitzender Junge ("Sitting boy") by Werner Stötzer, 1956

The Japanese tea ceremony is performed sitting in seiza.

Woman sitting astride a cannon.

Women reclining in chairs. Painting by Jean-François de Troy.

Sitting is a rest position supported by the buttocks or thighs where the torso is more or less upright.

Types of sittings[link]

Sitting on the floor[link]

The most common way of sitting on the floor involves bending the knees. One can also sit with the legs unbent, using something solid as support for the back or leaning on one's arms.

Sitting with bent legs can be done along two major lines; one with the legs mostly parallel and one where they cross each other. The parallel position is reminiscent of, and is sometimes used for, kneeling. The latter is a common pose for meditating.

Parallel legs[link]

• Seiza (正座^?) "correct sitting" is a Japanese word which describes the traditional formal way of sitting in Japan. Sitting in seiza is kneeling on one's own lower legs, with the feet under the buttocks, toes pointed backwards. To sit in seiza for any length of time requires careful positioning of the heels under the sit bones of the hip, to minimize circulation loss. A related position is kiza (跪座^?), which differs in the tops of the feet being raised off the ground.
• Vajrasana (Diamond Pose) is a yoga posture (asana) similar to seiza.

Cross-legged[link]

• A common cross-legged position is with the lower legs folded towards the body, crossing each other at the ankle or calf, with both ankles on the floor, sometimes with the feet tucked under the knees or thighs. The position is known in several European languages as tailor style, from the traditional working posture of tailors;^[1] compare tailor's bunion. It is also named after various plains-dwelling nomads: in English Indian style, in many European languages "Turkish style", and in Japanese agura (胡座, The sitting style of non-Han ethnics (particularly Turks, Mongols and other Central Asians.)^?). In yoga it is known as sukhasana.
• The lotus position involves resting each foot on the opposite thigh so that the soles face upwards. If only one foot is brought into this position, it is called a half-lotus position. This position is common in yoga and meditation.
• The Burmese position, named so because of its use in Buddhist sculptures in Burma, places both feet in front of the pelvis with knees bent and touching the floor to the sides. The heels are pointing toward pelvis or upward, and toes are pointed so that the tops of the feet lie on the ground. This looks similar to the cross legged position, but the feet are not placed underneath the thigh of the next leg, therefore the legs do not cross. Instead, one foot is placed in front of the other. This is a popular sitting alternative for those less comfortable with the use of the Lotus or half Lotus positions in meditation and yoga.
• Zazen, the Japanese word for "sitting meditation", is a form of meditation rather than a particular posture. During zazen, practitioners may assume a lotus, half-lotus, Burmese, or seiza position.

Sitting on a raised seat[link]

A man sitting in Brooklyn, New York.

Back of a sitting nude by school of Rembrandt.

Most raised surfaces at the appropriate height can be used as seats for humans, whether they are made for the purpose, such as chairs, stools and benches, or not. While the buttocks are nearly always rested on the raised surface, there are many differences in how one can hold one's legs and back.

There are two major styles of sitting on a raised surface. The first has one or two of the legs in front of the sitting person; in the second, sitting astride something, the legs incline outwards on either side of the body.

The feet can rest on the floor, or on a footrest, which can keep them vertical, horizontal, or at an angle in between. They can also dangle if the seat is sufficiently high. Legs can be kept right to the front of the body, spread apart, or one crossed over the other.

The upper body can be held upright, recline to either side or backwards, or one can lean forward.

Posture[link]

Alice, the protagonist of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is representative of children who were once admonished to "sit up straight." ^[2]

Recent studies indicate, however, that sitting upright for hours causes increased stress on the back, and may be a cause of chronic back pain. Researchers have found that a "135-degree back-thigh sitting posture" was the best posture to avoid back problems—that is, leaning back in the chair 45 degrees. Researchers found that the 90-degree position contributed most to strain on the spine, neck included, while the 135-degree position was the most relaxed.^[3]

Optimal posture while sitting is now referred to as neutral spine.^[4]

Variations[link]

Variations of the above include an aside variant with the legs resting above and beside the armrests, or the anti-authoritarian posture of reversing the chair and one's legs in front of the back of the chair.

Kneeling chairs[link]

The Kneeling chair (often just referred to as "ergonomic chairs"), was designed to encourage better posture than the conventional chair. To sit in a kneeling chair one rests one's buttocks on the upper sloping pad and rests the front of the lower legs atop the lower pad, i.e., the human position as both sitting and kneeling at the same time.

Mythology[link]

In various mythologies and folk magic, sitting is a magical act that connects the person who sits, with other persons, states or places where he/she sat.^[5]

Sitting defecation posture[link]

The sitting defecation posture involves sitting with hips and knees at approximately right angles, as on a chair. Most Western-style flush toilets are designed to be used with a sitting posture.^[6] The sitting posture is more widespread in the Western world, and less common in the developing world. Toilet seats are a recent development, only coming into widespread use in the nineteenth century.^[7]

Health effects[link]

Recreational sitting, as reflected by television/screen viewing time, is related to raised mortality and CVD risk regardless of physical activity participation. Inflammatory and metabolic risk factors partly explain this relationship.^[8]

See also[link]

• Chair
• Coccydynia
• Human positions
• Riding-like sitting
• Sitting disability
• Squatting position

References[link]

Look up cross-legged in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sitting

Look up sitting in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Sitting Means Sitting on your rear end