Although more organized than most other communities, especially in the beginning, Nashville’s sit-in experience was typical. Students gathered at the First Baptist Church, which had served for more than a year as the site of Lawson’s workshops and would continue to serve as a civil rights headquarters in the city. Students dressed in their nicest clothes. Lewis wore the light blue suit he had purchased for his high school graduation, which he recalls would become a “trademark of sorts for me in the years to come.”
