People complain that our society’s problems are too burdensome for one person to do anything about. One person cannot change the world, but one act by a few good people can affect a wave of change across a state and country. This was followed by a plea of justice on February 1, 1960, when four African-American students from North Carolina A&T; State University sat down to a “whites only” lunch at Woolworth’s.
I went to that Woolworths and ordered something from that lunch counter. I was a freshman at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1988 twenty-eight years after someone like me sat in at that meal the contrary was the first. When I walked into that store, I had no idea what was going on that would allow me to buy an apple pie that day, but I soon learned. What follows is an account of how my city became the center of the new civil rights movement.
Four young men, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezel Blair, Jr., and David Richmond lived in the same dorm area at North Carolina A&T; State University. The two friends were born and raised in Greensboro. One was from Wilmington but transferred to New York, the other in Washington D.C. born and raised, on the night of January 31, 1960, they decided that something should be done about the problem of segregation that still existed in the South.
Each of the young men had been dropped by Emmett Till in 1955. For those of you who don’t know about Emmett Till, he was a half-career in an open funeral casket. in Chicago, Illinois, at the request of Mamie’s mother. Emmett Tillius was a fourteen-year-old boy who was allegedly killed for whistling by a white woman in a warehouse in Mississippi. He was dragged from his uncle’s house in the middle of the night, beaten on the head, and thrown into the river with a seventy-five pound porricon snare around his neck. . The perpetrators of his murder were acquitted.
Four A&T; the disciples had enough. It was a small thing that blacks were treated like second-class citizens, they could even be killed at a whim, and the courts did not correct any injustice. Someone should try to do it. So on February 1st, Franklin, Joseph, Ezell, and David walked into the Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro and sat down for lunch.
White clients are probably repulsed. At least the four claimed that they were out of town and did not know the “rules”. Someone may have said that it was a “whites only” luncheon. As if the words had fallen on deaf ears, the four sat on the counter without a word. No one knew what to do, so the old store closed. More persistent than ever, the four returned the next day and sat down again. Other students from North Carolina A&T; One state university boarded-in. There was a message from the network that it was going to be done and moved. The number of sit-ins demonstrated grew every day, and soon the movement spread to the neighboring cities for lunch. Demonstrations spread to fifty-four cities in nine states.
Back in Greensboro, the city closed. Negotiations with store owners to integrate them with lunch counters have failed and the sit-ins will continue. Finally, in July 1960, more than five months after he began to sit, F.W. The Woolworth Company has integrated its lunch counters in Greensboro. The civil rights movement was alive and well and lingering in North Carolina.
Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr. (who later became known as Jibreel Khazan), and David Richmond became symbols of the civil renewal movement. As a result, life after college is difficult for them. Everyone in Greensboro knew their names and called them troublemakers. They all returned together from the city to David Richmond. He remained in the city until his death in 1990. The documentary, entitled “February”, commemorating the lives of those fighting against the injustice of the race, was broadcast on the independent program Lens PBS.
The Aselli store where they were sitting on the move closed not long after I entered college in 1988. The cross street where the store was located was named February Place One. The Woolworth Building was purchased by the Sit-In Movement group, incorporated and renamed the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. The museum will chronicle the history of the “Greensboro Four,” as the four youths met, and educate the public on the importance of action as a movement in changing the course American history. A portion of the lunch counter is now part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. and at the Greensboro Historical Museum. The original chairs where the Greensboro Four sat will be displayed in the civil rights museum when it is completed. Sit-In Motion, Inc. is still raising funds to complete renovations on the building.
My husband and children attended the February One Luncheon every year at North Carolina A&T; Greensboro State University is honored by the Pope. It was a special moment for them when the statue of the four boys was unveiled on the A&T;s campus to be honored. My children have learned that when they do something good, the world can change in a little while. It is up to us as citizens of this country to remember and learn from their sacrifice, not only in Black History Month. but it is every month of the year. So spread the word.
