Photo Essay on De-Segregation in Austin
Movement Folk Tales
The Austin American Statesman released a wonderful photo essay on the Austin desegregation movement of the early 1960s. Most of the photos were of the University of Texas student effort but some were of the efforts to desegregate the Congress Avenue restaurants. Please remember that these historical photos are only 60-65 years old. Many of the participants are still alive.
Please spend some time viewing these documentary photos.
People’s History in Texas in 2013 produced a documentary on one of those events—the Stand-Ins. https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/documentaries/standins/ The struggle to desegregate two movie theaters along the Drag in front of the University of Texas had a national impact. The effort was historical because the tactics were unique and peaceful and because the successful protest led to the immediate desegregation of all Southern theaters in the Paramount chain.
The students, both college and high school, adopted the practice of Standing In, not Sitting Down. They would stand in line, ask for a ticket for themselves and their African-American friend and when they were inevitably denied, they politely went to the end of the line. When it was once again their turn at the front of the line, they politely asked if the policy had changed.
It avoided violent confrontation, but had the effect of slowing down the line and of discouraging other patrons.
Paramount Theaters, the owners of the Varsity, was based in New York City. When they finally caved, they simultaneously desegregated all of their theaters throughout the South. The exact number is not known but it was somewhere in the vicinity of 100.
The tactic of standing in line was so clever that Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned it in her national column. Groups around the South were planning to copy the practice when Paramount finally caved.
So please read the Statesman article and look at the pictures. And watch the documentary.
Two of the photos in particular are ones that PHIT have not previously seen.
from the Austin American Statesman
Especially interesting is the photo of two young and clean cut boys who were on waiting outside a courtroom. They were on trial for attempting to bomb the University Y. The University Y upstairs meeting was where the planning for the Stand-ins took place. The two tossed a bomb through a window up the stairs.
According to Leon McNeely, interviewed by PHIT in 2012, if successful, the bombing would have resulted in the biggest mass civil rights mass murder on the decade. “But they had bad aim…although honestly it was a tough throw. It was a narrow stairway and the throw hit one of the stained glass windows and the bomb fell down the stairwell.”
The two were arrested but were put on probation. Given Texas courts at the time, they were probably admonished to practice their pitching.
from the Austin American Statesman
The other photo is of Ernest Goldstein who, at the time, was a law professor in UT. He would later go on to work in LBJ’s administration. His daughter, Susan Lipsitch, participated in the Stand In protest of the theaters on the Drag. She was also interviewed for the documentary. Susan credits her father with making personal contact with Leonard Goldenson, head of Paramount Theaters and telling him that it was morally embarrassing and told him to "do the right thing.” Goldenson, in May of 1961, desegregated every Paramount Theater across the south. Goldstein probably wasn’t the only motivating factor. Paramount was also facing potential sympathetic protests in NYC…and so Goldenson, under personal and public pressure, did the right thing.