Michael Cass

mcass@tennessean.com

Maxine June Walker Giddings, one of the first college students arrested in the downtown lunch counter sit-ins that changed Nashville and helped galvanize the civil rights movement across the South, died March 31 after a long illness. She was 73.

Mrs. Giddings was a student at Fisk University, where she later earned a chemistry degree, when she joined the movement of young people protesting the fact that African-Americans could shop at downtown department stores but couldn't order food at their lunch counters. Students started sitting at the counters, asking to be served and then remaining seated when they were inevitably denied.

Mrs. Giddings was sitting next to Paul LaPrad, a white student at Fisk, when he was assaulted by white hecklers on Feb. 27, 1960, the third Saturday of the demonstrations. A famous United Press International photo captured LaPrad crouching on the floor, his hands covering his head, as a white woman in glasses smiled broadly and Mrs. Giddings, still in her seat at the counter, looked away.

Her younger brother, Matthew Walker Jr., said the incident set off the first mass arrest of Nashville sit-in protesters. Walker also was one of more than 80 students arrested on disorderly conduct charges that day.

Walker said his sister "had a keen sense of justice and cared greatly for others." Their father, the late Matthew Walker Sr., was a prominent black doctor and official at Meharry Medical College.

"She was a person who brought joy into any kind of gathering," Matthew Walker Jr. said of Mrs. Giddings. "She always could see the bright side of things and give people the benefit of the doubt. She was just a gem of a sister."

Mrs. Giddings is survived by her husband, Brandford E. W. Giddings, Sr., and three children, Brandford E. W. Giddings, Jr., Randolph M. Giddings and Dr. Candace Giddings Koney-Laryea.

Visitation with the family will be held today at 11 a.m. at Clark Memorial United Methodist Church, 1014 14th Ave. N. The funeral service will follow at noon.

Reach Michael Cass at 615-259-8838 and on Twitter @tnmetro.