[Ads-l] Antedating of "Sit-In" (Civil Rights Tactic)

[Shapiro, Fred]

The OED has an entry for "sit-in" that combines the labor-movement tactic (first use 1936) with the later civil-rights-movement tactic.  I think the civil-rights-movement tactic should be separated out in OED and should be covered in the Oxford Dictionary of African American English.  Here are the earliest citations I have found, one for the noun usage and one for the attributive usage:

1960 Buffalo Evening News 10 Feb. 50-Section III/2 (Newspapers.com)  Negro "sit-in" protests against segregated eating places gave rise to threats of reprisals from groups seeking to maintain segregation.

1960 Washington Afro American 13 Feb. 5/2 (Newspapers.com)  The next demonstration came in Winston-Salem when Carl Matthews, a student at Winston-Salem Teachers College, started a "sit-in" at the Kress store.

Fred Shapiro

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