lunch counter

Once, she told me that she wanted to participate in a sit-in at the lunch counter of the Woolworth’s, a retail department store chain, on Main Street in Hampton.

“I was sitting at the lunch counter looking in the mirror in front of me at the White people behind me, wondering what they might do to me,” she told me.

“The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter,” King wrote.

It’s not hard to feel outrage at the sight of sheriffs siccing police dogs on innocent protesters, or gangs of toughs beating Black college students for sitting at a lunch counter.

Paschke sat at the packed lunch counter on a recent afternoon, waiting to pay.