In the document, the students outlined their opposition to segregation and their plans to "use every legal and nonviolent means at our disposal to secure full citizenship rights as members of this great Democracy of ours.”[2][1] The appeal was attacked by Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver as a "left wing statement... calculated to breed dissatisfaction, discontent, discord, and evil," and Georgia's two U.S.
[3] Meanwhile, Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield thanked the students for voicing their opinions, but took no immediate steps to address the problems they brought up.
[1] Overall, ten lunch counters and cafeterias across the city were targeted,[2] with 77 of the 200 involved students arrested, including Black and Bond.
[1] Despite this, the sit-ins remained peaceful, with the organizers calling them a success and temporarily suspending them during negotiations with representatives from Atlanta's business community.
COAHR decided to postpone the sit-ins until October in order to coincide with the 1960 United States presidential election, hoping to bring national attention to the protests.
In April 1960, civil rights activist Ella Baker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had talked to student activists in North Carolina and helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),[5] which would establish their headquarters in Atlanta in the fall.
The next day, about 100 members of the Ku Klux Klan, dressed in their regalia, held a counter protest in front of Rich's.
Following this, Walden began to negotiate with business officials (including Atlanta Chamber of Commerce leader Ivan Allen Jr.) regarding terms for an end to the protest.
[7] On March 7, Lonnie King and Sullivan attended a meeting where they were told that an agreement had been reached wherein lunch counters and restaurants would be desegregated after the public schools were integrated in Fall of that year in exchange for an end to the sit-ins.
[9] One notable effect of the sit-ins in Atlanta was the straining of the relationship between the established black elite in the city, who were more conservative in their approach to the civil rights movement, and younger activists who were more assertive and less willing to compromise.