What Atlanta University Protests Looked Like in 1960 and 2024

As the Israeli-Palestinian war drags on, students across the United States are using their college campuses as catalysts for change.

After the arrest of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University in April, students at several Atlanta universities began demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine. This is not the first time that local universities have seen a surge in student activism. The parallels between the sit-ins in downtown Atlanta in 1960 and the peaceful protests at nearby universities in 2024 are strikingly similar.

The arrests during peaceful protests on the Emory University campus sparked outrage among Atlanta students. To show their support, students from Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University and Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) also held protests, mostly on social media.

On May 1, SCAD Atlanta students walked out of their classrooms to demand that SCAD divest from “companies that profit from Israeli apartheid.” An Instagram post about the protest, made by an Atlanta activist group called SCAD Students for Justice in Palestine (SCAD SJP), had been circulating since April 25. Two days before the planned strike, SCAD sent an email to students warning that the university would not tolerate any “attempts to disrupt campus operations.”

According to two of the students behind the SCAD SJP Instagram account, who wish to remain anonymous, SCAD students were concerned about how the university might react if they participated in the protest.

“There was a lot of concern about the police response because of what was happening at other schools,” they said. “But in the end, there was a huge turnout (on the Atlanta campus) and everyone did their part in sharing the messages and spreading the word.”

This story comes from a special collaboration between SCAD and Rough Draft Atlanta. To read more SCAD student stories, visit our SCAD x Rough Draft hub.

SCAD SJP stated that they have not yet received contact from SCAD regarding their organization’s requests. The school’s only response so far has been the email warning, which SCAD SJP reported to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), describing it as “a veiled threat that could very easily constitute a violation of our rights.”

“Many of the statements and arguments made today by university leaders condemning the protests and encampments mirror those condemning protesters in the civil rights movement in the 1960s,” SCAD SJP said.

SCAD SJP argued that Emory’s president’s wrongful dismissal of the protesters as outsiders eerily mirrored the actions of those who opposed the Montgomery bus boycott in the 1960s, who once described the protesters as “outside agitators.” The New York Times reported that the term predates the civil rights movement and stems from “the racist notion that insurrectionist ideas had to come from elsewhere because blacks in the South couldn’t come up with them on their own.”

The SCAD SJP said the goal of the sit-ins and the occupation of public spaces was never to create physical harm. “It’s about being seen and heard, and showing the institutions you contribute to that you will not remain silent in the face of their corruption,” they said.

This philosophy was also present in the Atlanta area in the spring of 1960, when Morehouse student Lonnie King first learned of the progress North Carolina students were making toward desegregation. Inspired by the restaurant sit-ins in Greensboro, King organized a peaceful protest campaign with other local HBCUs to bring the same activism to Atlanta (according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia). Similarly, SCAD SJP’s call to action on Instagram directly stated that the walkout at SCAD Atlanta was organized to support Columbia University students.

Following the student-led sit-ins in downtown Atlanta during the civil rights movement (and the arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Rich’s department store in October 1960), the city Atlanta banned segregation in public facilities in 1961 due to significant economic stress.

According to a 2010 interview with the late Lonnie King for Atlanta Magazine, the activist once said that, in retrospect, the key to achieving that goal was staying true to the organization’s roots on campus.

“Education has always been the artery of progress, certainly in the South,” King said.

Even though most of Atlanta’s student activists have left campus for summer break, their ongoing fight to end the war between Israel and Palestine won’t stop at sit-ins and encampments. Instead, students are continuing to use their online social media platforms to organize local protests and advocate for Palestine until classes resume this fall.