"The 'sixties' were born on Feb. 1, 1960." More on the sit-in anniversary.

Andrew B. Lewis in the LA Times:

The "sixties" were born on Feb. 1, 1960, 50 years ago this week, when four African American college students staged the first sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. Since then, the mythology of the '60s has dominated the idea of youthful activism.

Of the three big events of the early civil rights movement -- the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott and the sit-ins -- the sit-ins have always been the least understood and, yet, the most important for today's young activists.

We forget how troubled the civil rights movement was in January 1960. It was six years after Brown, but fewer than 1 in 100 black students in the South attended an integrated school. And during the four years after the end of the bus boycott, Martin Luther King Jr. struggled to build on that victory. Many worried that the civil rights movement had ground to a halt. Then Greensboro changed everything.

In the time before Twitter, the rapid spread of the sit-ins was shocking. The first sit-in was an impulsive act, led by college students. They spread to Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, Durham, N.C., and Little Rock, Ark. -- more than 70 cities and towns in eight weeks. By summer, more than 50,000 people had taken part in one.

At the time, this was not just the largest black protest against segregation ever; it was the largest outburst of civil disobedience in American history. The sit-ins rewrote the rules of protest. They were remarkably egalitarian: Everyone participated; everyone was in equal danger. And they went viral because they were easy to copy. All one needed for a sit-in was some friends and a commitment to a few simple principles of nonviolent protest.

Read the rest: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lewis31-2010jan31,0,7040...

The first of many 50th annivesaries over the next several years: The sit-ins began in Greensboro, NC on 2/1/60.

via heraldtribune.com

AP story by Martha Waggoner

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The four college freshmen walked quietly into a Greensboro dime store on a breezy Monday afternoon, bought a few items, then sat down at the "whites only" lunch counter -- and sparked a wave of civil rights protest that changed America.

Violating a social custom as rigid as law, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond sat near an older white woman on the silver-backed stools at the F.W. Woolworth. The black students had no need to talk; theirs was no spontaneous act. Their actions on Feb. 1, 1960, were meticulously planned, down to buying a few school supplies and toiletries and keeping their receipts as proof that the lunch counter was the only part of the store where racial segregation still ruled.

"The best feeling of my life," McCain said, was "sitting on that dumb stool."

"I felt so relieved," he added. "I felt so at peace and so self-accepted at that very moment. Nothing has ever happened to me since then that topped that good feeling of being clean and fully accepted and feeling proud of me."

They weren't afraid, even though they had no way of knowing how the sit-ins would end. What they did know was this: They were tired, they were angry and they were ready to change the world.

The number of protesters mushroomed, reaching at least 1,000 by the fifth day. Within two months, sit-ins were occurring in 54 cities in nine states. Within six months, the Greensboro Woolworth lunch counter was desegregated.

Read the rest: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100131/ARTICLE/1311056/-1/NEWSSITEMAP

Franceso Clemente: "There are two lineages of light in painting."

"Paintings are simple things. They are important not so much for what is in them as for what is not there. When we talk of the Renaissance we talk of something fragile; the surprise is that at a certain point, after a thousand years of Christianity, Renaissance artists looked at their bodies again, and looked at their faces, and looked at the world as a sensual place. This feeling of surprise happens again in Tiepolo's skies, and even down to de Chirico's earliest painting. If we talk of Piero della Francesca, what comes to mind is the light. There are two lineages of light in painting. One is a secular light: from Caravaggio to de Kooning. The light is outside; it comes down on things, and makes them what they are. But if we talk of Piero, or talk of Roman paintings, or of the Pompeian paintings, we talk of a light that comes from within and that has nothing to do with the history of man. It is a light that is before the history of man. Giotto is unique because you don't know exactly which way the light goes: his is already a completely secular point of view, but still the light is treated as an inner flow. There is really no one else like him; that degree of mystery is nowhere else. We have to talk in terms of light, because if we talk in terms of formalities, what can we get out of it?"

Via Elizabeth Avedon

http://elizabethavedon.blogspot.com/2010/01/francesco-clemente-vintage-interv...