When the lights dimmed at Trustees Theater, there were over 100 people crammed shoulder to shoulder in the first several rows of seats. In the back of the house, the dinging of cell phones, whispering and the crack of flash photography were constant. But in front there was a near-reverent silence.
“Sitting In / Standing Up,” a multimedia exhibition performance by SCAD alumnus Masud Olufani, had already begun. The exhibition was held in conjunction with the unveiling of a state historical marker that pays homage to a March 1960 sit-in at the former site of Levy’s Department Store, now home to SCAD’s Jen Library. The sit-in was one of the first demonstrations in the city’s civil rights movement.
The historical market is one of 30 unveiled on the “Georgia Civil Rights Trail,” an effort to tell the story of Georgia’s role in the civil rights movement.
Olufani’s exhibit consists of a slideshow of images that play over clips of interviews with men and women who experienced segregated Savannah. The speakers recount the beginning of the civil rights movement in Savannah as well as the devastation that segregation inflicted. The Levy’s sit-in plays out on screen, ending with the arrest of Ernest Robinson, Joan Tyson Hall and Carolyn Coleman, three young black demonstrators at the time.
The subsequent marches and protests are also shown, including sit-outs at white churches and boycotts of other department stores.
The slideshow ended only a little past 10 a.m. The audience at Trustees went silent and waving American flags faded into a projection of the artist, Olufani, using a slingshot to shoot targets ornamented with the photographs of the arrested demonstrators. As the projected Olufani solemnly kissed the targets he shot, the real Olufani, flanked by a singer, appeared on stage to speak of the civil rights movement.
Following the multimedia presentation, a series of speakers mounted the stage, including Coleman, who earned a standing ovation before she even spoke.
Former Savannah mayor Edna Jackson also spoke. She served as a lookout on the day of the Levy’s sit-in, and was arrested later that year while trying to integrate then-white-only Tybee Island beach.
Though the demonstrators are now praised for their heroism, that wasn’t always the case. Coleman told the audience that on the day of the Levy’s sit-in, the three young demonstrators were called to the principal’s office. The principal told them he knew about their plans and admonished them not to go through with it.
“‘You’re just pawns, guinea pigs of the NAACP,’” the principal said. “We responded ‘We are not guinea pigs of the NAACP. We are the NAACP.’ He thanked us and told us to return to our classes.”
Today, Coleman’s advocacy continues as the secretary to the NAACP Board of Directors and vice president of the North Carolina NAACP.
The ceremony concluded with more music and a speech by SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace. Wallace spoke about her friendship with W.W. Law, a mailman who served as the heart of Savannah’s civil rights movement, educating Coleman and the other students in non-violent protest and organizing other sit-ins and boycotts. His leadership was so effective that Martin Luther King Jr., during a visit, remarked that he was not needed in Savannah at all.
“The university’s many historic buildings across the world tell powerful tales, and this historical marker at SCAD’s Jen Library will ensure one of the most important events of this storied city is never forgotten,” Wallace said. “Together, we stand humbled in the shadow of history and give thanks to the gallant souls who stood when a world tried to shut them down. Love wins.”
The event ended with another song and most of the audience surrounded the small space in front of Jen Library to see the unveiling of the historical marker.
One message in particular was being pushed upon the audience, repeated throughout Olufani’s slideshow and the subsequent speeches by the powerful women on stage: Remember these stories, or all this will happen again.
“I think the road ahead is a continuous journey,” said Jackson, who lost her re-election in December 2015 following a campaign tinged with racial undertones. “This event today served to remind Savannah not only of how far we’ve come, but how far we have to go. It’s not over. And if we don’t continue to tell these stories then we will undoubtedly regress to the days before 1960.”
