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After the protest, Robinson would even sometimes send complimentary food to the Urban League office, where Hamilton worked.

Robinson remodeled the restaurant with one large seating area for all the customers. 3, 1962, when the restaurant caught on fire.Īfter meeting with Robinson on Sept. In August 1962, Daisy Bates, co-owner of the state’s largest African-American newspaper, met with Robinson, who refused to change her ways.Īfter the contentious encounter with Robinson, Hamilton and Bates formed the Organization for the Destruction of Discrimination, which began picketing the segregated seating at the restaurant on Aug. They were refused service and left after Robinson, who was holding a knife, told them to leave.Īfterwards, Hamilton, Armstrong, community members, and organizations began to protest the segregation at the restaurant. In June 1962, Wanda Knight Hamilton, an administrative worker at the Urban League of Greater Little Rock, and her friend, hairdresser Irma Coleman Armstrong, both African Americans, sat down in the whites-only section at Fisher’s Bar-B-Q. Robinson even went so far as to give the African-American customers the worst cuts of meat.” Boston Torrence (co-owner of a flower shop across from Fisher’s Bar-B-Q) said, ‘that’s just the way it was.’ Mrs. “It was an interesting little episode in Little Rock history,” Tell-Hall said. According to Tell-Hall’s paper, the restaurant was a favorite hangout of Arkansas politicians and their families, who entered through the kitchen to avoid the mixed-race dining area. While the restaurant had an integrated sitting area, it also contained a whites-only room that had nicer flooring and air conditioning.