Rich’s closed its lunch counters rather than face integration

Evidence

As the sit-ins stretched into a second week, owners and operators of the targeted stores prepared for what the Atlanta Journal grimly predicted would be a “long sit-in siege.” Several variety chains made plans to keep their lunch counters closed indefinitely. As the manager at Newberry’s put it, “it doesn’t look like a break is in sight.” Larger department stores were digging in their heels as well. Rich’s management entered a state of denial, refusing to address the sit-ins raging around their store and hoping the problem would simply go away. When a black leader proposed a citizens’ committee on the sit-ins, Dick Rich dismissed all such meetings as “fruitless.” When a white activist offered to mediate new discussions between the store and the students, Rich scrawled across the letter: “I think we should ignore this.” Throughout his store, workmen boarded up the lunch counters and installed vending machines instead. Restaurant workers were let go, with no assurances of being rehired. Even the Magnolia Room closed. Yet again, white Atlantans made it clear that, when faced with the “threat” of desegregation, they would abandon a public space, no matter how prized, rather than see it integrated. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 433

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Rich’s feared the appearance of capitulation more than the boycott itself — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 424