LRY (Liberal Religious Youth)

Ayres, E. Daniel - First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
"...Eventually that day we found a fried chicken take out window on the side of a store in the black side of town that served us, but the experience prompted some of us to draft a resolution which passed unanimously at the end of the week of our L.R.Y. National Conference meetings which in essence said, If the college that hosted us (A Quaker school) did not do something about the problem, we were never coming back. Students returning a couple of weeks later to their fall semester heard about it, organized "sit in" efforts and eventually desegregated the hotel." Read full.

Matute, Juan - Pacific Unitarian Church, California, late 1950s to early 1960s
"...we stopped in Amarillo, Texas, and a bunch of us (about 10) went to a Woolworth lunch counter, near the bus terminal, to get a sandwich or a coke. In our group was a girl from Oakland, but the name of Reba. The color of her skin is Black. There was a bit of a kerfuffle when we were giving our orders, and we were told that we could not be served because of the color of Reba's skin. You can imagine what a bunch of California liberal kids on an LRY mentality though about this. We told them that we would all leave if Reba was not served. We stayed seated. The Amarillo cops came, and told us to get on the bus and never come back. The cops also wanted to arrest a Dutch student who was with us because he had a hunting knife (about 6") on his belt. We got on the bus after it had been serviced, and left town. I don't remember if we ever got served or not. It did not occur to me until many years later that we were actually on of the first sit-ins in the nasty 60's. ..." Read full.