In Nashville, Tennessee the sit-ins became violent on February 27, 1960 when a group of white teenagers attacked sit-in participants. The Nashville police arrested not only members of the group who were being violent but the sit-in participants as well. Once the sit-in participants were arrested, new students quickly replaced them until about 81 were arrested.
Sit-ins continued to take place in Nashville until the day Mayor Ben West was asked if it was wrong to discriminate against a person based on race, and he answered yes. Shortly afterwards, lunch counters in Nashville were desegregated.
Numbers of participants in the sit-ins grew so that by the time the Woolworth Store finally decided to desegregate their lunch counters on July 25, 1960, more than 70,000 people had participated and more than 3,000 people had been arrested in sit-ins across America.
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