02/02/2024
Black History Month it is!!!
February 1, 1960: At 4:30pm Four African-American students initiated the sit-in movement by sitting down at Woolworth's lunch counter at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The four freshmen from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University– Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan), and David Richmond – stayed until the store closed.
The men, later known as the A&T Four or the Greensboro Four, went to Woolworth's Store, bought toothpaste and other products from a desegregated counter at the store with no problems, and then were refused service from the segregated lunch counter, at the same store. Following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the black men at the "whites only" counter and store manager Clarence Harris asked them to leave.
LEGACY:
◾️Despite sometimes violent reaction to the sit-ins, these demonstrations eventually led to positive results:
✊🏿For example, the sit-ins received significant media and government attention. When the Woolworth sit-in began, the Greensboro newspaper published daily articles on the growth and impact of the demonstration. The sit-ins made headlines in other cities as well, as the demonstrations spread throughout the Southern states. A Charlotte newspaper published an article on February 9, 1960, describing the state-wide sit-ins and the resulting closures of dozens of lunch counters.
✊🏿On March 16, 1960, President Eisenhower expressed his concern for those who were fighting for their human and civil rights, saying that he was:
"Deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution."
✊🏿In many towns, the sit-ins were successful in achieving the desegregation of lunch counters and other public places. Nashville's students attained desegregation of the downtown department store lunch counters in May, 1960.
✊🏿The media picked up this issue and covered it nationwide, beginning with lunch counters and spreading to other forms of public accommodation, including transport facilities, art galleries, beaches, parks, swimming pools, libraries, and even museums around the South.
✊🏿The Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated desegregation in public accommodations.
✊🏿In 1993, a portion of the lunch counter was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution.
✊🏿The International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, contains four chairs from the Woolworth counter along with photos of the original four protesters, a timeline of the events, and headlines from the media.
✊🏿The street south of the site was renamed February One Place, in commemoration of the date of the first Greensboro sit-in.
✊🏿February One (also referred to as the A&T Four Monument) is the name of the 2002 monument dedicated to Ezell Blair, Jr.,Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond who were collectively known as the Greensboro Four.