Reply #57: Greenboro Lunch counter sit-in turned 50 last week.

[EFerrari]

"On February 1, 1960, four African American students – Ezell A. Blair Jr. (also known as Jibreel Khazan), David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain – from <[North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University|North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (A&T) , a historically black college, sat at a segregated lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth's store. This lunch counter only had chairs/stools for whites, while blacks had to stand and eat. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter. The four students were aware that Woolworth’s would not serve blacks at their lunch counter but they sat down anyway, engaging themselves in a plan they had been discussing for a month prior to the sit-in."[br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_sit-ins



http://www.sitins.com/

New Civil Rights Museum Marks Historic Sit-In



JAYNE CLARK
USA TODAY
January 30, 2010

On Feb.1, 1960, Franklin McCain and three fellow African American college students walked into the F.W. Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro, N.C., sat down at the lunch counter and ignited a movement that re-shaped American society.

On Monday, exactly 50 years after that historic act, the new International Civil Rights Center & Museum opens in the former five-and-dime store. Almost 16 years in the making, the museum's centerpiece is the original lunch counter where McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond and Joseph McNeil took a seat at the segregated facility and politely, but steadfastly, refused to leave. Eventually joined by others, they returned day after day to stage a sit-in that would continue until late July, when at last, the eating area was de-segregated. Their protest sparked similar sit-ins throughout the South, enlivening the civil rights movement.

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/civil-rights-museum-marks-historic-greensboro-lunch-counter/story?id=9692889