Background Information: The first sit in originally happened February 1st 1960 in Greensboro North Carolina when four African American college students ordered coffee but they wouldn’t get served so they sat there patiently waiting. Sit ins were influenced by the previous peaceful protests that Martin Luther King JR. was leading. So basically MLK was their inspiration
Goal of the event: The whole point of a sit in was was to sit down in direct action that involves people in an area protesting for a political, social or economical change.
Who was involved?: Most of the people that were involved in the sit ins were young African American students, typically college. This soon turned out to become the student nonviolent coordinating committee (SNCC). Early leaders included Stokely Carmichael and Fannie Lou Hamer. The congress on racial equality (CORE) was a northern group of students led by James Farmer. Also this was mostly influenced by MLK because most of the students looked up to him so he had a great deal to do with sit ins.
Obstacles they had to overcome: Sit ins were very hard because most of the time people didn't like the protesting so they would retaliate to the protest and because the sit ins were a peaceful protest the protesters couldn't do anything back. African American students overcame this by just rallying together and taking the beatings but at the end of the day they knew they won.
Outcome/Lasting impact on the event/Modern inequality: Sit ins had a very big impact on protests today whereas a lot of peaceful protests occur just to grab attention like blocking a road or laying down in a mall. Sit ins were similar to the Mall of America protest of Black Lives Matter where people would lay down in stores to grab other peoples attention. As well as the Dakota Pipeline when the Native Americans would not leave their land; Therefore the pipeline couldn't be built. To conclude, a lot of peaceful protests these days are very similar to the sit ins back in the day.
Source: The Sit-In Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved April 26, 2017, from http://www.ushistory.org/us/54d.asp