“I was trying to hold my peace because I have a mouth on me,” Cheryl Wyatt said, recalling how she was treated for sitting at the lunch counter. “It was just that idea that they’re telling me I can’t sit here because of the color of my skin.”
Cheryl Wyatt stands in front of the Woolworth building in Alamo Plaza. In 1960 she and a friend skipped school to join local church pastors who had organized a sit-in to protest the store's segregated lunch counter. The building is slated to become part of the new Alamo Museum and Visitors Center.Cheryl Wyatt was 13 years old when she skipped school and took the bus downtown with a friend to the Woolworth store in Alamo Plaza.
The stores had racially segregated restrooms — dark and dingy for Black patrons — and separate water fountains. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again. “I was trying to hold my peace because I have a mouth on me,” Wyatt said. “It was just that idea that they’re telling me I can’t sit here because of the color of my skin.”
Later, as a school teacher, Wyatt frequently shared the story with her class and showed them photos of sit-ins in other cities in the South. “But you couldn’t say too much … because then the administrator would say, ‘Why would you bring that up?’” she said. She was making the case for the need to proceed with plans for the Alamo Museum and Visitors Center, to be housed in the Woolworth building, amid a dispute over property rights.
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