Cherrydale sit-ins

Cherrydale sit-ins
Cherrydale sit-ins
Part of the Sit-in movement; in the Civil Rights Movement
	George Lincoln Rockwell, other Nazi Party members, and hecklers confront Dion Diamond at Cherrydale Drug Fair on June 10. Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post
Date	June 9 – June 10 and June 18 – June 21, 1960
Location	Cherrydale, Arlington County, Virginia
Caused by	Racial segregation in public accommodations
Resulted in	Desegregation of lunch counters and businesses in Arlington County, Fairfax County, and Alexandria
Parties
Students and academics from: Howard University; Georgetown University; ; Cherrydale Drug Fair employee; Organizations involved: Nonviolent Action Group; ;	Lunch counters at: Peoples Drug; Drug Fair; Howard Johnson's; Lansburgh's; F. W. Woolworth Company; ; Organizations involved: American Nazi Party; ;
Lead figures
	Nonviolent Action Group Laurence Henry; Paul Dietrich; American Nazi Party George Lincoln Rockwell;

The Cherrydale sit-ins were non-violent protests that took place in Cherrydale, a neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia, from June 9 to June 10, 1960. They were organized in opposition to Arlington County's racial segregation of African Americans, which existed in its businesses and residential communities during the Jim Crow era.

The sit-ins were planned by the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), a student-run affiliate activist group of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Howard University, and occurred primarily at the Peoples Drug and Cherrydale Drug Fair lunch counters. Participants were harassed during the two days by local high school students, agitators from across Northern Virginia, and members of the Arlington-based American Nazi Party, including their leader, George Lincoln Rockwell. Two protestors were arrested on June 10 for trespassing, and a car chase took place on the night of June 9 between six white high school students and two black men.

Arlington's business community eventually opened their services to black customers after more sit-ins between June 18 and June 21, making Arlington the first county in Virginia to desegregate their lunch counters, and the first county in the South where a chain restaurant served black customers. This then spread to Fairfax County and Alexandria, where business owners also chose to end their policies of segregation.