Watkins / The First March
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Watkins: When we got ready to start marching, we let Reverend Larson pray with us and pray for us. We stood under the flag on our campus—our first sit-in. We stood under the flag and pledged our allegiance to the flag, but we also sang the black anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” We left the campus in twos and walked up to Weingarten which is located on Almeda and Wheeler, and the school’s on Wheeler so we marched up Wheeler. When we got there, nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew this is what we were doing. So, when we got there, people were going in and out of the store, so we all lined up on Wheeler across the street from there. Eldrewey said We need—he went inside and saw that there were I think it was six stools that were empty—he said “We need six people to go in and sit at those places.” So, I was the first one to go in. Then, it was two more people. We ended up with six people at a stool. So that’s where was the beginning for us.
| Interview | Interview with Halcyon O. Watkins |
| Subjects | Direct Action › Marches |
| Student Activism › Sit-ins | |
| Tags | Stearns, Eldrewey |
| Weingarten's Grocery Store, Houston, TX | |
| Lawson, William A. "Bill" | |
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| Interview date | 2015-07-23 |
| Interview source | CRBB Summer 2015 |
| Interviewees | Watkins, Halcyon O. |
| Duration | 00:01:32 |
| Citation | "The First March," from Halcyon O. Watkins oral history interview with , July 23, 2015, Civil Rights in Black and Brown Interview Database, https://crbb.tcu.edu/clips/288/the-first-march, accessed April 18, 2024 |
