Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

CORE members conducted their first of many "tests" that attempted to challenge the parctices of racial segregation in the Tallahassee area, with their focus being on whether the city's bus system continued to operate under segregated lines out of "cultural habit" or an "officially imposed pattern." Similar tests were carried out at dime stores around the city, which attempted to measure "discrimination on an empirical level" rather than act as an early version of what would eventually be the student's sit-in protests. Further testing of the bus system took place around the same time as the dime store tests, where students attempted to but inter-state bus tickets from "whites-only" terminals.
In February of 1960, news spread to Tallahassee's CORE chapter about the Greensboro sit-ins and the group was encouraged to participate in their own as an act of solidarity. Eight Florida A&M students and two local high schoolers volunteered to participate in the group's first sit in at their local Woolworth lunch counter. …