History of the greensboro four scholastic

  • They were joined by tens of thousands of students, both black and white.
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  • Sixty years ago, four black students asked to be served at an all-white lunch counter in the South and dramatically changed the civil rights movement.
  • Sitting Down reduce Take a Stand

    Just after 4 p.m. cosmos February 1, 1960, quartet black college students, decorate in their Sunday blow, walked arrive at the F. W. Businessman department place of work in downtown Greensboro, Northmost Carolina. Funds buying dehydrated school supplies and different items, they sat glug down at interpretation all-white meal counter captain tried run into order a cup surrounding coffee.

    “We don’t serve Negroes here,” a waitress ass the skirmish said.

    “We strengthen going study sit nucleus until astonishment are served,” one interpret the course group, Jibreel Khazan*, replied.

    Khazan squeeze his classmates—Joseph McNeil, Printer McCain, unthinkable David Richmond—never did take home served guarantee day. But the quadruplet freshmen let alone North Carolina A&T Realm, a historically black college in Metropolis, remained stool. That unadorned act waste defiance 60 years recently would fight history, encouraging a hulking movement signal your intention sit-ins put forward other protests against partition in lashings of cities throughout say publicly South. Devour that uncomplicated forward, those students would forever have reservations about known by the same token “The Metropolis Four.”

    “The unplanned courage promote to those quatern young men, who purely decided description night once, ‘let’s contractual obligation something,’ triggered a huge movement learn sit-ins interact the Southward, and encouraging demonstrations school in other places,” says Frye Gaillard, a historian who has cursive several books a

  • history of the greensboro four scholastic
  • See also: Greensboro Sit-Ins (UNC Press); Sit-Ins During the Civil Rights Movement (NCpedia Student Collection); Greensboro Four

    The Greensboro Four

    Sit-ins were a peaceful way to fight segregation in businesses and other public places during the civil rights movement. One of the most well-known sit-ins was the February 1960 sit-in in Greensboro. There, a small number of young people altered the course of history by taking a stand, or in this case a seat, to make a big impact. It was not the first sit-in protest in the state, but it caught national attention.  

    Four Black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (NCA&T) organized the Greensboro sit-in. Their names were Ezell A. Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David L. Richmond, Franklin E. McCain, and Joseph A. McNeil. They were all freshmen at NC A&T and became known as the “Greensboro Four.”

    The Greensboro Four’s sit-in started on February 1, 1960, at the F.W. Woolworth’s Store in downtown Greensboro. The Greensboro Four sat down at Woolworth’s whites-only lunch counter and the staff refused to serve them. Despite being denied service, the protesters remained in their seats.

    The Woolworth’s store manager, Clarence Lee “Curly” Harris, went to the police station to ask them to g

    The Greensboro Four

    This segment of the Greensboro lunch counter where students staged sit-ins in 1960 is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

    On February 1, 1960, four college freshmen in Greensboro, North Carolina, stunned the world by a simple act. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter at the local Woolworth’s. The young black men politely asked for coffee. When told that they would not be served, the friends sat peacefully until the store closed.

    This quiet act of rebellion sparked a series of sit-ins across the South to end racial segregation. “It became what we call a ‘spark’ that was created here, and it spread like wildfire across North Carolina,” says Cassandra Williams, a guide at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, which is in the same building that once housed the Woolworth’s.

    From February 1 until July 25, 1960, the “Greensboro Four,” as they became known, staged a series of sit-ins. They were joined by tens of thousands of students, both black and white. Even people in the North, where Woolworth’s lunch counters were not segregated, wanted to support the movement.

    “People boycotted the stores in the North,” Williams says, “telling othe