Sit-ins reignited the civil rights movement 50 years ago - USATODAY.com: Fifth Avenue downtown bustles with activity on a blustery recent afternoon. People of all races mingle: This could be any midsize city in the United States, circa 2010.
Fifty years ago, things were different. The stores along Fifth — specifically, their lunch counters — and the city itself were the site of a battle that also played out in dozens of other cities in the South.
The fight pitted black college students and a few of their white peers against the city's white power structure and its downtown merchants over the right to sit down and eat lunch. At the time, blacks could spend money in those stores but couldn't eat at the stores' lunch counters.
