1960: Greensboro Sit-Ins
On February 1st of 1960, four black college students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University organized a demonstration at a local Woolworth’s store. After purchasing some items and retaining the receipts, they sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter and ordered some food.
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Photo sourced from WUNC North Carolina Public Radio: http://www.wunc.org/post/two-greensboro-four-honored-sit-anniversary#stream/0
They were refused service and the establishment notified local police. Since the demonstrators had arranged to have local media arrive on the scene and because they were paying customers of the establishment, law enforcement refused to arrest them.
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They repeated the demonstration with larger numbers of protests several days later. The national news media attention they received helped to spark a wave of similar protests throughout the American South, galvanizing what would come to be known as the sit-in movement.
Information sourced from: "Greensboro sit-in." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 28 Apr. 2011. academic-eb-com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Greensboro-sit-in/487394.