I'm thinking about 'white's only' establishments and signs commonly seen in 1960's civil rights photo's and videos. Like the whites only drinking fountains or stores. Examples here and here. Were signs like these common throughout the south? And had they been up since the civil war? Or a newer trend in the 1960's as a counter to any social progress for African Americans?
Another example are the sit-ins. Was this a common type of establishment or just a few overtly racist business owners?
Interesting question. The Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, decided in 1896, was a test of the recently invented Jim Crow regime which was being adopted throughout the South as a means of circumventing the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which forbade both slavery and the creation of racial castes. The theory behind Jim Crow was that treating the races equally, but separately, would satisfy the Constitution. "Whites only" rules were widespread only after Plessy, and the civil rights movement focused on efforts to control lynching until after Worl WAr II. There is a considerable literature concerning the early years of Jim Crow leading up to Plessy, which I have tried to summarize with regard to the recent return in affirmative action cases to the thinking that is proper to treat unequal classes alike. As to the sit-ins, I suppose Homer Plessy's refusal to leave the whites-only car was an early example, but the attention paid to private establishments didn't make sense as they were exempt from Constitution requirements by early Supreme Court decisions. So no, the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s was something new, both in aims and in methods. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a principal accomplishment, as it for the first time made private establishments doing business in interstate commerce subject to anti-discrimination rules. [edited to straighten out some confusion of dates]
