The First Time I Marched, a Man Put a Cigarette Out on My Arm. I Didn’t Flinch.

Georgianne Thomas, 83, never heard about segregation growing up in Gary, Indiana. She had a very sheltered childhood, and in 1960 she graduated from an integrated high school. That fall, when she moved to Atlanta to attend Spelman College, Thomas was confronted with Jim Crow laws for the first time. At 18, she was shocked by the injustice and soon joined the burgeoning Atlanta Student Movement, where she was trained in nonviolent resistance. This is the story of the day she participated in her first march, on Oct. 19, 1960.

This account has been condensed and edited for clarity.

At the bottom of the hill, what stands there now is the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I’ve often remarked there should be a marker there. When you got to the bottom of the hill, everyone got quiet. It was time to decide whether or not you wanted to go up that hill. 

Did you want to demonstrate? What did you want to do? That was the turning point. Because once you started up the hill, it was complete silence, not any singing. We didn’t do anything. 

When we got up that hill, the Klan was waiting for us, and that was a sight that I had never seen before. That was the first time I was afraid. I was absolutely fearful, but there was no turning back, and I had made up my mind that I was going to do it, whatever the consequences were.

When we got up there, all these white people were waiting up there, jeering and calling us names. 

I was assigned to a store called Rich’s. Beautiful store. Everything about it was grand, except they had places where Black people couldn’t try on clothes, and we couldn’t eat in the Magnolia Room. We only could eat downstairs in the basement, and I think we’d shop down there; I’m not sure. I never shopped there. 

But I know I got my little placard, and I started marching in front of Rich’s. And it was fine, people spitting on us. We already expected that, and we had freedom songs that we sang. 

As I was marching around — and you’re getting spit on, spat on, and people calling you the N-word and jeering at you — this one man jumped out of the crowd. He didn’t have on a Klan outfit, but he was a white man, an older white man. He jumped out in front of me. I was shocked. 

And he took his cigarette — I was holding my little placard — and he put the cigarette out on my arm. And people were laughing and jeering at me, and I let him put the cigarette out. I was the tall girl, and he was tall also. And I looked him in his eyes, he looked back at me, and he put the cigarette out, and they all laughed. 

Now my arm is hurting. But I didn’t flinch, I didn’t move, I didn’t do anything. I let him do it. And then he went back in the crowd. They all laughed, and I kept marching. And my arm was hurting, but I had made up my mind that whatever he did, what I was doing was more important than that.