Definition of "lunch-counter" [lunch-counter]

• A counter or long elevated table in an eating-house or other house of entertainment, at which persons sit on high stools or stand while taking a lunch: also, colloquially, a standee. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Associated Press Mr. Shuttlesworth tried to enroll his kids in a segregated school, led lunch-counter sit-ins and organized the Selma-to-Montgomery march of 1965."
• "In 1960, when presidential candidate John F. Kennedy offered to intercede for King, who was in jail for participating in a lunch-counter sit-in, many black voters deserted the little that remained of Lincoln's Republican Party."
• "His only dispute is with desegregation of the private sector -- the local merchants and lunch-counter operators whose speech rights were apparently encroached on by an overzealous federal government."