Lunch Counter Desegregation in San Antonio Texas
Inspired by the Greensboro N.C. sit-in earlier that year, in March of 1960 the San Antonio Chapter of the NAACP organized to integrate the seven major segregated department store lunch counters in downtown. The stores were W. T. Grant's Department Store, S. H. Kress & Company, F.W. Woolworth and Company, Neisner's Department Store, H. L. Green's Department Store and Joske's, the cities leading retail establishment. Mary Lillian Andrew, a freshman at Our Lady of the Lake University and president of the San Antonio NAACP Youth Council, wrote to the stores demanding the they begin integration. Following threats of mass sit-ins, efforts by Black religious and business leaders, and the all-white San Antonio Council of Churches and Chamber of Commerce, six departments stores, along with Sommers Drug Store agreed to integrate on Mach 16th. The one exception was Joske's which through the late summer store refused to allow African Americans to be served in its two of its three dining facilities.
The lunch counters are highlighted below in Green (integrated on March 16th) and Red (did not). Click them for additional images and information. Also shown is the 1952 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of San Antonio.
This map is part of the the San Anto History Go! Project which has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.