The Greensboro NC Woolworth and Sit-In Movement
Mar 2, 2011 Michael Streich
What was the price of a cup of coffee in the South in 1960? For some African Americans, it was intimidation, violence, and even death. But on a Monday afternoon on February 1, 1960, four black college students attending North Carolina A and T State University defied the segregationist policies at the Greensboro, North Carolina F.W. Woolworth lunch counter and made history. Their courage and humanity contributed to the sit-in movement that involved 70,000 people over the next year.
The Face of Segregation in the American South
The sit-in movement was non-violent protest. The students were told, “We don’t serve colored here.” Ezell A. Blair, Jr., Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond refused to leave. Within a week, the four were joined by four hundred, both black and white, and their protest became a nationwide story. This was the story of “Whites’ only” water fountains and restaurants that refused to serve African Americans. At Southern state capitals whites with placards proclaimed “Race Mixing is Communism.”
By the time A & T students sat down at the Woolworth lunch counter, Rosa Parks had refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama (1955) and Alabama Governor George Wallace stood at the door of the University of Alabama refusing to admit black students. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, all public schools were closed.
Undoing Almost One Hundred Years of Separate but Equal
Segregation in the South began in the waning years of Reconstruction. The erroneous and immoral notion of “separate but equal” was affirmed in 1896 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Plessy v Ferguson. Not until the Warren Court issued its ruling in Brown v Board of Education would separate but equal be declared inherently unequal.
Although the courts in various cases issued rulings designed to end segregation and guarantee full social and political equality, the four A & T University freshmen added a new dimension to the Civil Rights Movement: anyone could participate. Segregation would not change solely through judicial action. It would require the efforts of men, women, and children of all races.
Fifty Years after the Woolworth Sit-In of 1960
Woolworth closed early that 1960 Monday afternoon. But the sit-in movement spread throughout the South, in some cases leading to arrests for trespass. In 1960, over three thousand protesters were arrested as part of the South’s response to the movement. Today, Woolworth has closed its doors (as of 1993) and the building at 134 Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina houses the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.
NC A & T University students are still actively involved in bringing solutions not just to the local community but to the world. A vibrant international studies program sends students for long and short-term educational experiences to some of the poorest countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. The university offers a Global Studies certificate to qualifying graduates.
In February 2010 three surviving members of the 1960 sit-in group were honored during the dedication of the museum in Greensboro. Part of that lunch counter including four seats had already been displayed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The Greensboro museum functions as a chronicle of the boldness and determination of four college freshmen whose actions in February 1960 helped to change a social system that was un-American and immoral.
Sources:
- Owen Edwards, “Courage at the Greensboro Lunch Counter,” Smithsonian, February 2010
- International Civil Rights Center & Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Smithsonian Museum
- Lucas A. Powe, Jr., The Warren Court and American Politics (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000)
- Note: this writer taught Global Studies at NC A & T State University
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