Anti-war protesters on Princes Street near
the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, March 2003
Copyright Pending
Sit-Ins
'Oh sit down, sit down/Sit down next to me,' sang the gloriously
mindless indie group James in the 1990s. And hundreds of thousands
of kids did just that, sitting on the floors of their local discos
for no particularly good reason and enjoying it immensely. But
that doesn't mean the sit-in was always so apolitical.
A sit-in
basically means people occupying – and usually, literally, sitting
down in – an area they see as ripe for protest. That can mean
anything from a schoolroom to a shopping mall, with many stops
in between. Protestors usually stay put for as long as possible,
which means until they get turfed out by security or the police.
Meanwhile, the sit-in draws attention to the cause in question,
and can even produce some bargaining power for immediate demands.
Sit-ins have been used by many non-violent activists, from Gandhi
to Martin Luther King Jr, and have formed an important part of
many direct action movements. The Greensboro sit-ins of the 1960s
are widely seen as the launch of the American civil rights movement
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