Threads in a Tapestry of Hope:
Lessons from a Sit-in
By
William P. H. Stevens Jr.5
I. Framing the Sit-in Within Its Context
To claim a comprehensive view of the 1960 sit-in, we must
revisit the context in which it took place. The conventions of Jim
Crow were very much a part of the fabric of life in North Carolina then
as in the rest of the South, though Winston-Salem carried an air of
civility that generally muted racist expression more than was the case
in cities further south. At Wake Forest College, we swam in a sea of
white faces with not a single black person among the student and
faculty populations. For the most part, we accepted this without
question because we had never considered any other pattern. Segregation was so ingrained within the larger culture that we had very little
experience on which to base an informed opposition.
6 William P. H. Stevens Jr. was pastor of Greensboro Monthly Meeting
from 1971 to 1993, when he began a retreat ministry at his home, Glenagape,
in Oak Ridge, North Carolina. He and his fiancee Margaret Dutton led Wake
Forest College participation in a 1960 sit-in in Winston-Salem. (Margaret
Stevens died in 1979.) Stevens shared some of the following recollections at
the November 2004 gathering of the North Carolina Friends Historical
Society.
32
*^m
Threads in a Tapestry of Hope:
Lessons from a Sit-in
By
William P. H. Stevens Jr.5
I. Framing the Sit-in Within Its Context
To claim a comprehensive view of the 1960 sit-in, we must
revisit the context in which it took place. The conventions of Jim
Crow were very much a part of the fabric of life in North Carolina then
as in the rest of the South, though Winston-Salem carried an air of
civility that generally muted racist expression more than was the case
in cities further south. At Wake Forest College, we swam in a sea of
white faces with not a single black person among the student and
faculty populations. For the most part, we accepted this without
question because we had never considered any other pattern. Segregation was so ingrained within the larger culture that we had very little
experience on which to base an informed opposition.
6 William P. H. Stevens Jr. was pastor of Greensboro Monthly Meeting
from 1971 to 1993, when he began a retreat ministry at his home, Glenagape,
in Oak Ridge, North Carolina. He and his fiancee Margaret Dutton led Wake
Forest College participation in a 1960 sit-in in Winston-Salem. (Margaret
Stevens died in 1979.) Stevens shared some of the following recollections at
the November 2004 gathering of the North Carolina Friends Historical
Society.
32
*^m
