The restaurant became a gathering place for leaders of the civil rights movement to discuss strategy, often with their white allies. At the time, it was illegal for black and white people to mix. At the restaurant, Mrs. Chase fed hungry Freedom Riders fresh off the road and hosted meetings of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She let a young Thurgood Marshall use her telephone to call Robert F. Kennedy even when phoned-in lunch orders were pouring in. “We were trying to be accepted without hurting anybody,” Mrs. Chase said in an interview with the National Public Radio program “The Splendid Table.” “In the ′60s, here come these young people — bam!

Source: New York Times June 02, 2019 15:51 UTC