From the San Antonio Express, Friday, March 12, 1965, Page 1A and 16A.
San Antonio Express: “Sit-Ins Breathless Over Adventure”
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Category Archives: Media
Boston Globe: “Drag Teen-Agers From White House After 7-Hour Sit-In”
Boston Globe: “Arrested for White House Protest”
This photo from the Boston Globe on March 12, 1965 shows Sheila and two other women talking with their lawyer following their arrest at the White House.
Press Telegram: “Dragged from the Executive Mansion”
The protest was reported in the Long Beach Press Telegram
— From the Press Telegram, Friday, March 12, 1965, page 2.
Charleston Gazette: “White House Seiged by Sit-In”
The sit-in was front-page news in Charleston, West Virginia, which ran the same AP story:
— From “White House Seiged by Sit-In“, the Charleston Gazette, Friday March 12, 1965, Front page and page 27.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Youths Stage White House Rights Sit-In”
The sit-in was front-page news in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 12, 1965:
Mt. Vernon Register: “Nothing like it had ever happened”
New York Times: “Sitdown Inside White House Protests Selma”
The protest was reported on the front page of the New York Times: “Sitdown Inside White House Protests Selma; Police Eject Youths — Pickets Continue March Outside”
White House Photos of Sit-In
The Johnson administration excluded any media from the area of Sheila’s March 11, 1965 sit-in at the White House, so the only photo we’ve found of the protest inside the White House comes from the archives of Johnson’s Presidential Library:
— From “March 11, 1965. Twelve protestors stage a sit-in demonstration at the White House in relation to civil rights.” posted to “LBJ Time Machine“, a Tumblr run by the LBJ Presidential Library
Sheila’s partially obscured but still recognizable in the center back of the group:
Update: The LBJ Library posted a second picture from a different angle:
Second Update: Another area of the LBJ Library’s web site has these in higher resolution, and adds a third photo, taken before the other two, while they were still sitting in the Center Hall outside of the library.
Here’s a close-up of Sheila:
There must be more photographs from this sequence in their archive.
School Success
Sheila was a successful student at Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree.
In addition to her academic success, she was also a Massachusetts finalist in the Betty Crocker Homemakers contest.
In her senior year, the Boston Archdiocese awarded her a full scholarship to the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., where she earned a degree in philosophy.
Childhood
This photo shows a young Sheila standing in front of some type of tracked construction equipment, during a visit to one of her father’s engineering project sites:
She had three younger siblings: Margaret (“Marnie”), John (“Johnny”), and Kathleen (“Kathy”).
This photo shows the four of them standing by the Cape Cod Canal, near Gray Gables:
1948-1950: Peterborough, NH
Sheila’s parents moved to Peterborough, New Hampshire when she was young, so that her father could work on the Edward MacDowell Dam, constructed in by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1948-1950.
This picture shows Sheila outside the Peterborough house:
Born March 1, 1945
Sheila was born in Oxnard, CA on March 1, 1945.
Her father, John Lawrence Ryan, was a civil engineer.
Her mother, Margaret Patricia Mullen, was a school teacher.
This is the earliest picture we have of her:
