‘Black Resistance at the Lunch Counter’ photo exhibit opens Monday

Exhibit depicts San Antonio’s role in desegregation

SAN ANTONIO – In keeping with this year’s theme for Black History Month, ‘Black Resistance at the Lunch Counter’ depicts the peaceful integration of the Woolworth store in March 1960.

The photo exhibition by the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum opens Monday at the IKEA in Live Oak.

Dee Goforth was a teenager when she said local African American religious leaders and the Junior NAACP organized an effort to desegregate several business establishments in downtown San Antonio.

Goforth said she and other African American students made three stops that day -- the Majestic Theater, Kress and Woolworth.

“We wanted to take our signs and march,” Goforth said. “We couldn’t do that because they served us.”

Unlike elsewhere in the South, what happened in San Antonio is described as a “Quiet Revolution,” part of a film series produced by the San Antonio Conservation Society in partnership with SAAACAM.

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About the Authors

Jessie Degollado has been with KSAT since 1984. She is a general assignments reporter who covers a wide variety of stories. Raised in Laredo and as an anchor/reporter at KRGV in the Rio Grande Valley, Jessie is especially familiar with border and immigration issues. In 2007, Jessie also was inducted into the San Antonio Women's Hall of Fame.

Luis Cienfuegos is a photographer at KSAT 12.

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