sit-ins

1. A form of nonviolent protest, employed during the 1960s in the civil rights movement and later in the movement against the Vietnam War. In a sit-in, demonstrators occupy a place open to the public, such as a racially segregated (see segregation) lunch counter or bus station, and then refuse to leave. Sit-ins were designed to provoke arrest and thereby gain attention for the demonstrators' cause.

The civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., defended such tactics as sit-ins in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Example Sentences

The movement behind nationwide protests sweeping Morocco, the GenZ 212 youth collective, called Monday for "peaceful sit-ins" to push its demands for reforms.

Read more on Barron's

The online movement, a driving force behind more than two weeks of near-nightly protests in the kingdom, called for demonstrators to take part in sit-ins Saturday in cities across the country.

Read more on Barron's

Students at Sapienza University where she works are staging sit-ins at several faculties.

Read more on BBC

Or will they keep firing off angry letters and staging sad Capitol sit-ins?

Read more on Salon

Where students organize walkouts and sit-ins to fight for a better education.

Read more on Los Angeles Times