<P> A sit - in or sit - down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change . </P> <P> The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) conducted sit - ins as early as the 1940s . Ernest Calloway refers to Bernice Fisher as "Godmother of the restaurant' sit - in' technique ." In August 1939, African - American attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized a sit - in at the then - segregated Alexandria, Virginia, library . Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor delegates had a brief, spontaneous lunch counter sit - in during their 1947 Columbus, Ohio, convention . </P>

Where was the tactic of the sit in protest used