In a collective, voluntary move, lunch counters and cafeterias at seven Alamo City businesses integrated on March 16, 1960, marking a civil rights milestone.
It was 65 years ago this week that lunch counters and cafeterias at seven San Antonio stores integrated, marking a milestone in local history and in the national civil rights movement. On March 16, 1960, seven San Antonio businesses, most of them downtown, integrated its lunch counters and cafeterias.
The stores were Woolworth, Kress, Neisner’s, Grants, Green’s, McCrory’s Variety Store and Sommer Drug Stores. The collective voluntary move was inspired by a sit-in organized the previous month by four Black students who refused to give up their seats at a “whites only” lunch counter at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, after being denied service, newspaper archives show. Their sit-in inspired other demonstrations across the segregated South. In contrast to many of the sit-ins and other such protests, some turning violent and leading to arrests, the integration of San Antonio lunch counters was peaceful. And, it was one that put the city in the national news spotlight. Baseball legend Jackie Robinson was quoted in newspapers nationwide as saying that “San Antonians are setting examples for the whole nation.” Robinson visited the city a few days after the integration and was invited to speak at two local churches, bringing more attention to the Alamo City during this crucial moment in the civil rights movement. Of the lunch counters that were in the three buildings that still exist in Alamo Plaza, the one at the Woolworth Building is viewed as the most prominent because it was part of a national store chain at the heart of the desegregation movement, archives show. The 1921 Woolworth Building at the corner of Houston and Alamo streets is set to become the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum. RELATED: Plan to renovate Woolworth Building for Alamo visitor center approved despite concerns Also this week in San Antonio history, Thomas Jefferson High School was dedicated 93 years ago on March 19, 1932, according to records kept by the San Antonio Public Library’s Texana/Genealogy Department. In 1929, a year before construction on the high school began, only two high schools existed in San Antonio — Brackenridge and Main Avenue . Built on 30 acres of land about five miles northwest of downtown, the high school was built in a Spanish Moorish design using money from a $3.7 million school bond proposal presented by the San Antonio Independent School District and approved by taxpayers. The land where the school was built had been full of weeds and mesquite trees, “accessible only on horseback because there no roads past Fredericksburg Road at the time,” records show. When it opened, Jefferson had the usual curriculum, such as history and math, and it also offered classes in etiquette, dancing and radio broadcasting, SAISD records show. The Thomas Jefferson name was chosen by the nearly 1,400 students who transferred from Main Avenue High School. The students also picked blue and red as the school colors and chose the mustang as their mascot. Before the end of its first decade, Jefferson had become nationally and internationally known. In 1937, it was chosen out of 1,500 schools as the most outstanding high school in America. It was featured in a photo spread in the March 1938 issue of Life Magazine, with members of the Lassos drill team gracing the cover. Hollywood also took note of the palatial-looking school building. Two 20th Century Fox movies starring Jane Withers were filmed at the school in the late 1930s. Jefferson — affectionately referred to as Jeff by locals — was featured in a 1938 newsreel by Paramount Pictures showcasing it as “America’s most modern high school.” The school has been designated a Texas historic landmark, and it became a part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. RELATED: San Antonio’s Lassos and Trinity Tiger women just did it before Title IX. Books trace their history. In San Antonio entertainment history, Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla performed for the last time in San Antonio 30 years ago this week. On March 17, 1995, Quintanilla performed at the Tejano Rose nightclub on Perrin Beitel Road, a day before singing at the “Stay in School Jamboree” at the Alamodome, according to archives. She was killed two weeks later. Posts by fans on social media show the concert took place days before Quintanilla’s final on-stage performance, which occurred March 19, 1995, in Bryan, Texas. The singer’s 1995 RodeoHouston performance, which was recreated in the 1997 biopic “Selena” using the Alamodome as a stand-in for the Astrodome, is often considered the singer’s last concert. The Feb. 26, 1995 performance, which aired live on Univision and spawned a DVD recording and a live album, was her last major concert. The show, a Tejano double bill that also included Emilio Navaira, drew a record-breaking crowd of over 61,000 fans, archives show. The singer’s performances in San Antonio and Bryan days before her death were part of a string of shows dubbed the “Amor Prohibido” tour, which was scheduled to head to California in April. On March 31, 1995, the former president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, fatally shot the singer in a Corpus Christi hotel room after Quintanilla confronted her about embezzling money. Saldívar, now 64, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Born in San Antonio, Saldivar is eligible for parole March 30. A review process is underway. A parole officer will review her file and interview Saldivar before preparing a case summary for the board voting panel. The board normally votes on the case just prior to the parole eligibility date. She is incarcerated at the Patrick O’Daniel Unit prison in Gatesville.
Sommer Drug Stores Alamo San Antonio Independent School District 20Th Century Fox Texana/Genealogy Department Moorish Astrodome Rodeohouston Univision Paramount Pictures National Register Of Historic Places Jackie Robinson Selena Quintanilla Green Mccrory Kress Neisner Thomas Jefferson Black Tejano Yolanda Saldivar Jane Withers Emilio Navaira Jeff San Antonio Woolworth Alamo City Thomas Jefferson High School Fox Tech High School Woolworth Building Alamodome Greensboro North Carolina South Texas Alamo Visitor Center And Museum Fredericksburg Road Main Avenue San Antonio Public Library Brackenridge Spanish Alamo Plaza Houston America Bryan California Corpus Christi Patrick O'daniel Unit Gatesville Jefferson Perrin Beitel Road Tejano Rose Title IX Stay In School Jamboree Hollywood Lassos Trinity Tiger Life Magazine Amor Prohibido
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