The Impact was Profound
Like bricks tumbling to the ground after being pummeled by heavy machinery, one after another, the stronghold laws of segregation began to fall. From March 1960 through June 1963, the students’ bold sit-ins, demonstrations and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the desegregation of Jeppesen and Busch stadiums, nearly 70 public lunch counters (including the police cafeteria) and, most importantly, economic opportunities.
Arthur Gaines, who was a member of the South Central YMCA Board, is credited as the first person to desegregate a Houston restaurant and hotel. He was called in by the South Central YMCA board and instructed to quietly desegregate Houston’s Shay Orleans restaurant, which was located on South Main Street.
Many of Houston’s business leaders, black and white, had began to work feverishly behind the scenes to aid in dismantling Jim Crow, only after they (white business leaders) realized the students would not relent in their valiant effort. The time when whites dictated race relations for the city were quickly coming to an end.
Gaines and his wife, Jeannie, made Houston history by becoming the first African-American couple to dine at a white restaurant.
“When we arrived, my wife and I, at the Chez Orleans Restuarant, the host had not been fully informed or she had forgotten what was to take place. And we walked up to her and she said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘We will be served.’ ‘You will be served,?’ she said. I said, yes. And then she thought for a minute and then she said, ‘Oh, that’s right, that’s right.’ She remembered that she was told that a Negro couple would integrate the restaurant. So, excitedly she ran around the place and said, ‘They are here!’ And I just stood back and looked at my wife and I said, 'Wow, what a reception'. And they took us and sat us down and served us. And Houston restaurants were integrated.”
The next target was Houston hotels. The YMCA Board of Directors had already worked behind the scene with the managers of the Rice Hotel to ensure there would be no incidents.
“I walked in the door of the Rice Hotel and the house detective evidently had not been informed that a Negro man was coming to the hotel…because you did not walk in the front door of the Rice. You walked in the side door in the service entrance of the Rice Hotel. I came walking in the front door and went across the lobby and this house detective was taking a little nod, a big hat over his eyes. He was sitting nodding in the lobby. The bellhop said, “Hey there’s Negroes in here.” He said, ‘Hey boy wait a minute, wait a minute boy. Where you going boy?’ I didn’t say anything, I kept striding as fast I could to the desk to say that I was there to stay the night. The clerk said, ‘It’s alright, it’s ok.’ So they showed me to my room. We went up stairs, stayed all night, slept, and got up the next morning and left. So the hotels were integrated,” said Haines.
Houston was being integrated; but few people new about it.
