Putting My Body on the Line

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland und das Jackson Woolworth Sit‐In von 1963

Abstract

English abstract: This article debates the physical involvement of the white southern civil rights activists Joan Trumpauer Mulholland in a sit‐in at a Woolworth lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. Working with Imke Schmincke’s analytical approach to examine the political implication of the body in social protest movements, the author presents Trumpauer Mulhol‐ land’s physical participation in various perspectives regarding the purpose (Zweck), medium (Mittel), and resource (Ressource) of her body as well as her body as a protest body (Protestkörper) itself. The author argues that with her actions Trumpauer Mulholland openly demonstrated her solidarity with the black protesters as well as her rejection of the racists system of segregation. Furthermore, just by sitting together with black students her actions were a visible and physical revolt against the racialized and glorified notion of white womanhood, which had been instrumentalized for centuries to brutally oppress the black population in the South.