Discovered ABC13 Footage of Lunch Counter Sit-Ins

[torimask]

Newly Discovered 1960 Footage

 

 

"The film was not listed in our archive and was only discovered when we were searching for another reel of film and discovered 700 feet of film labeled, 'lunch counter demonstrations'."

 

My mind reels at how much remains to be indexed and archived, gathering dust and deteriorating in back rooms.

 

 

[FilioScotia]

That old news film was part of one of the more phenomenal success stories in Houston history. I'm talking about the story of how Houston managed to desegregate many public facilities with none of the racial violence that was common in other southern cities.

 

The business community, local black organizations, and the news media worked together to make it happen peacefully without any violence. It was easy. The media agreed to not report it. 

 

I'm stealing this from a blogger known only as "MPowers", but I remember those times and even took part in a couple of the protest marches. MPowers writes that many people in Houston were afraid that the longer the protests took place, the more chance there would be for violence.

 

Bob Dundas, vice president of Foley’s department store in downtown Houston, watched the events that the students participated in very closely. Dundas was an old-fashioned political fixer and lobbyist who worked faithfully with the city’s ruling elite. He was old enough to remember the Camp Logan Riot and killings of 1917 and he didn't want anything like that to ever happen again.

 

The students' protests and the possibility of violence rekindled old memories for Dundas. So after much effort, he got downtown merchants to agree to desegregate their lunch counters simultaneously on the condition that there would be no press coverage of the event.  

 

Dundas got together with John T. Jones, publisher of the Houston Chronicle and president of Houston Endowment, and they worked to make sure that the event would not receive any news coverage. Oveta Culp Hobby, owner of the Houston Post, agreed to their plan, and under threats to pull Foley’s advertising from the Houston Press, Editor George Carmack also agreed to Dundas and Jones’ plan.

 

They secured an agreement between local newspapers, radio stations and TV stations to remain silent on the event for ten days. On August 25, 1960, seventy Houston lunch counters quietly integrated and Dundas greeted the TSU students when they arrived at Foley’s lunch counter and asked for service. The growing fears of racial violence led the white power elite to voluntarily desegregate and the result was a peaceful, relatively unnoticed social change in Houston.

            

The national press soon criticized the Houston media for censoring coverage of the event.  On September 2, 1960, an article in the Texas Observer stated,  

 

“We are still blinking our eyes—we can’t believe it!  The entire Houston press—newspapers, radio, and TV—entering into an overt conspiracy to suppress a major news development they had covered fully up to the time of its climax! … Inflammatory reporting is one thing, but truthful reporting is another. 

 

A scathing critique of the Houston media’s actions was also made in an article titled “Blackout in Houston” in the September 12^th issue of Time magazine. The article reported the comment that one unnamed Houston media official gave on why the stores decided to go along with the secret plan. “The stores wanted to integrate the lunch counters at the least possible cost. They wanted to lose neither Negro nor white business. They felt that not publicizing the event was their safest course of action."

 

Both economic and safety concerns were influences in the desegregation process and also motivated the Houston media blackout. The adult black leadership and the TSU students were all involved in this act of desegregation in Houston. Despite the criticisms of the national media, the voluntary and peaceful desegregation of seventy lunch counters in Houston went virtually unnoticed by the general public."

[acamarillo]

There is a documentary named "The Strange Demise of Jim Crow" from the late 90s that examines quiet desegregation across the south and apparently features the Houston situation prominently. I've never had the chance to see it and whenever I've looked I can find references but not an accessible link, though it's been awhile since I last checked and there may be some now. I remember an article about it and Foley's involvement in the chronicle.

[brucesw]

Linky

 

I've never seen it either but I think it's been shown at MFAH.

 

Several years ago I also came across the fact there was a unit of curriculum in California Public Schools about this.

 

Filio - I never knew the media had been excoriated for their participation in the hush-up.

[FilioScotia]

Oh yes. The reaction from the national print media was brutal. I guess they would have preferred race riots instead.

 

KPRC TV News Director Ray Miller was on board with the news blackout, and helped persuade other broadcast media bosses to go along. He told me once that he got nasty letters, telegrams and phone calls for weeks, and many of them were from other media around the country. But he also got a lot of high praise for his leadership, especially from leaders in the black community. He said he never regretted being part of the blackout.