Post #1 of 3
Without a doubt, the most extraordinary time in the history of Greensboro, NC was 64 years ago when four teenage college freshmen at NCA&T University helped change the course of the civil rights movement.
These four young men, 17 and 18 years old, joined by women from Bennett College and other college students in the area, decided they could no longer wait to take action against the customs that prevented them from being treated equally under the law.
The stirrings of their discontent had been in the air for decades. And there had been many conversations and meetings about how to challenge the unfair “Jim Crow” customs and policies. But the incident that triggered the call to action happened when student Joseph McNeil was on his way back to NCA&T from Christmas break in 1960. McNeil was denied counter service at the Richmond, Virginia Greyhound bus station.This set off McNeil’s feelings of anger and frustration, and when he arrived back in Greensboro, he gathered friends into his dorm room, where he vented his feelings to fellow freshmen Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, and David Richmond. McNeil prodded his friends to act, and act now.
Earlier that school year, they had already spent time with others devising a protest strategy. The strategy included these steps:
* Put on their nicest clothing, and walk downtown to the Woolworth’s store on Elm Street.
* Purchase some small items like combs, brushes, and toothpaste at Woolworth’s, and keep the receipts.
* Sit down together at the whites-only lunch counter and ask to be served.Show the Woolworth’s employees their receipts to establish that they were paying customers who had already been served at another Woolworth’s counter.
* Remain in their seats if denied service, until the store closed. Practice the teachings of nonviolent resistance, which they had carefully studied. On the next day, show up and repeat the process daily until they were served at the lunch counter.
The four young men alerted their white ally, shop owner Ralph Johns, that their plans were underway so that Johns could let the local press know what was about to happen. This was a savvy and very important part of their strategy.
On that first day, McNeil, McCain, Blair and Richmond stuck to their plan and things evolved with no violence… but no service at the lunch counter. The ill-equipped Woolworth’s store manager tried to get the four students to leave but they did not move until the store closed (early). As they left Woolworth’s, a reporter from the Greensboro News and Record asked them if they were coming back the next day. The answer was “yes” and at that point an iconic photo was taken of the four freshmen walking up Elm Street into the dark evening.
February 1, 1960 is a red letter day in the civil rights movement. And it has every reason to be a date that fills Greensboro, NC citizens with pride for this place in history.
See my next post for what happened after February 1 in the 1960’s Sit-In Movement.
Weekend driving trips are second only to learning everything about what is in my own back yard. Greensboro and the Triad are growing and changing and renewing in a way that no one would have predicted two decades ago.