Sit In: How Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down
Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney, Illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Summary:
A picture book that celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Greensboro, North Carolina, sit-in at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s as a protest against segregation.

Primary Source Pairing:
There are many powerful images from the Civil Rights Movement. This image is a snapshot of four men in a different time. This is evident from their clothes, the prices of food on the menu, and in the reason they are at the counter in the first place. Pair the the image of the four men above with the YouTube video below showing an interview with the author and illustrator Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney.

Questions for Discussion:

• Describe what you see.
• What do you notice first?
• What people and objects are shown?
• How are they arranged?
• What is the physical setting?
• What words or numbers do you see?
• What can you learn from examining this image?
• If someone took a photograph at a restaurant today, what would be different?
• What would be the same?

Credits:
Book Cover and Summary: Follett
Greensboro Four at Lunch Counter: Smithsonian National Museum of American History website

For more information and resources, check out the Library of Congress Primary Source set titled “The NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom” on the Library of Congress website.