A month after Marshall made his statement to reporters, four students from A&T College in Greensboro, NC conducted a sit-in at Woolworth department store to protest not being allowed to sit at the lunch counters. Their action led to an enormous increase in direct actions from African American, and in two weeks 54 sit-ins were conducted in 15 cities across nine states. Also around 3,000 protesters were sent to jail in 1960. Even though protesters faced violent resistance in the south, these protesters often succeeded. For example, after experiencing a $200,000 loss in sales during the boycott, Woolworth finally gave in and desegregated. The sit-ins led to further civil rights demonstrations and legal battles, it led to the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and prompted the freedom ride. Although it had initially been planned for the ride to end in New Orleans on May 17th, the Brown anniversary, the violent resistance they received made it impossible. It is clear that the Brown decision had a huge symbolic value that benefited civil rights for African Americans.
Although the Brown decision led to powerful demonstration and created organizations it was not a main interest for Congress or the presidential administrations because at that time both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration had their main focus on foreign policy such as the containment policy and the Cold War. However after years of continuous protest and demonstrations the movement finally received governmental assistance in 1953 after peaceful demonstration led to violent reactions by white southerners. The events were televised throughout the world, such as Martin Luther King marching in Birmingham where the demonstrators met heavy resistance by Birmingham fire and police. They were sprayed down with hoses and the police released police dogs. The civil rights movement could no longer be ignored by politicians and in June 1963 President Kennedy announced a civil rights bill that aimed at abolishing Jim Crows in public facilities in the south.