A Century of Black History Commemorations Planned for 2026

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The year 2026 will mark a century of commemorations and celebrations of pivotal moments in Black history, including the influential Sit-In movement of the Civil Rights era. The Sit-In protests, which began with a 1943 demonstration in Chicago and continued through the landmark 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, will be a central focus of the national theme.

Why it matters

The Sit-In movement was a key tactic of the Civil Rights era, using nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to the indignities faced by African Americans and force the partial integration of public spaces. Highlighting these historic protests in 2026 will help educate new generations about this important chapter of the struggle for racial equality.

The details

Some of the earliest recorded sit-ins happened before the Civil Rights movement, such as a 1943 protest in Chicago organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In 1948, civil rights activist Edna Griffin led a sit-in at a Katz drug store in Des Moines, Iowa that resulted in a successful lawsuit. And in 1958, the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City staged a sit-in that led to the integration of a Katz Drug Store lunch counter. The most famous sit-in was the 1960 Greensboro protest, where black students refused to leave a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter, sparking a wave of similar demonstrations across the South.

• The Chicago Sit-In took place on May 15, 1943.
• The Des Moines sit-in led by Edna Griffin occurred on July 7, 1948.
• The Oklahoma City sit-in was held on August 19, 1958.
• The Greensboro sit-in began on February 1, 1960.