Search for Common Ground (SFCG), a conflict prevention and conflict resolution NGO based in Washington, DC, honored Congressman John Lewis and Elwin Wilson for their reconciliation after Wilson’s apology for his civil-rights era violence against Lewis forty-eight years after the act. In January 2009, the two men met in Lewis’s congressional office where Elwin Wilson apologized to Rep. Lewis and expressed remorse for his long held hatred. Rep. Lewis then accepted the apology and offered his forgiveness without hesitation.
The first thing that came to mind when I learned about this conversation, which may or may not have included a cup of coffee, was the coffeehouse, the first social institution where rank and birth had no place; no seat could be reserved, as no man refused company. While segregation prevailed during the time when the coffeehouse came to prominence in London, the principle of equality this policy introduced had remarkable ramifications in the decades to come.
From the arrangement of its chairs, the coffee house allowed men who did not know each other to sit together amicably. While systems of respect were not abandoned totally, one of the attractions of the coffee house was meeting with people whose knowledge and interests might be of value. And though coffeehouse conversation was not always civil—imperfect communication is better than no communication at all—coffeehouses were great social levelers, open to all men and indifferent to social status.
During the Civil Rights Movement, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in Chicago in 1942 to promote better race relations and end racial discrimination in the United States. One of their first nonviolent actions was a protest against racial segregation at a Chicago coffee shop in 1943, one of the earliest known sit-ins of that era.
As the struggle for equality and more equal rights continues, the coffee shop continues to be a place where people can openly talk about the politics of the day. The unanticipated consequence of not allowing a seat to be reserved has turned out to be a positive and historically significant one.
So, next time you’re at a coffee shop, pull up a chair next to a stranger, strike up a conversation, and continue a coffeehouse tradition that emerged more than 300 years ago. As long as people who share similar and different points of view have public and accessible places to talk about what matters most to them, fewer seats will be taken. In some parts of the world, they remain reserved…
2 Comments
I thought the english pubs were the first social institution where rank and birth had no place. But it seems that pubs were used by the working class and coffeehouses by intellectuals. What’s the difference between alcohol fueled conversations and coffee fueled conversations?
From my understanding, english pubs had private rooms and social classes kept to each other (more so), but I’ll look into it further. Coffeehouses were commonly used by intellectuals, merchants, and the working class too; they were often known as penny universities. There’s definitely nothing wrong with alcohol fueled conversations (I love a good IPA). Caffeine is simply known to increase alertness rather than reduce it, and a different type of conversation results.
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