More than a decade before the Greensboro sit-ins helped ignite the modern civil rights movement, Bayard Rustin, a key strategist of nonviolent protest and later the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, staged a quiet but powerful act of resistance in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
In January 1947, Rustin, a Black and openly gay civil rights organizer, was denied a room at the Hamline Hotel in Saint Paul because of his race. Instead of leaving, Rustin sat down in the hotel lobby and refused to move. This action became known as a “sit-down-and-wait” protest.
As a result, the protest drew support from Rev. Clarence Nelson, president of the St. Paul NAACP, along with other community members who joined Rustin overnight…