Greensboro sit-ins

F. W. Woolworth Company

Industry	Retail
Headquarters	Greensboro, North Carolina , United States
Products	Department store merchandise, lunch counters

Greensboro Sit-Ins

The Greensboro sit-ins consisted of a sequence of peaceful demonstrations occurring from February through July 1960, mainly at the Woolworth store—currently known as the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—located in Greensboro, North Carolina. These protests prompted the F. W. Woolworth Company department store chain to abandon its policy enforcing racial segregation across its Southern outlets. Although not the inaugural sit-in within the civil rights movement, the Greensboro sit-ins gained prominence as a pivotal event and remain among the most recognized sit-ins during this era. They served as a significant spark for the broader sit-in movement, which eventually engaged approximately 70,000 participants. Moreover, this series of demonstrations played a key role in establishing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Previous sit-ins

Main article: Sit-in movement

In August 1939, African-American lawyer Samuel Wilbert Tucker initiated the Alexandria Library sit-in in Virginia, at the location now known as the Alexandria Black History Museum. In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality organized sit-in protests in Chicago, followed by similar actions in St. Louis in 1949 and Baltimore in 1952. A group of college students led a notable 1955 sit-in at Read's Drug Store in Baltimore, which achieved success but did not attract as much national attention as the Greensboro sit-ins. The 1958 Dockum Drug Store sit-in in Wichita, Kansas effectively ended segregation across all Dockum Drug Stores within Kansas, while that same year, the Katz Drug Store sit-in in Oklahoma City prompted the Katz Drug Stores chain to abolish its segregation policies. Similar to the Greensboro sit-ins, these two 1958 protests utilized comparable tactics aimed at desegregating lunch counters within stores. From 1958 through 1964, Oklahoma City emerged as a significant center for sit-in activities.

Activists' strategy

The group later known as the Greensboro Four consisted of Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond. These were four African American freshmen attending North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University who frequently gathered in their dormitories to deliberate on ways to oppose segregation.

A four-seat segment of the lunch counter, obtained by the Smithsonian Institution in 1993, is exhibited at the National Museum of American History. Additionally, a six-seat section was gifted to the Greensboro History Museum in the same year and is currently on view.

Memorials and honors

The street located south of the original site was renamed February One Place in 1990 to honor the date marking the first Greensboro sit-in.

In 2002, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University unveiled the February One monument and sculpture created by James Barnhill, portraying the Greensboro Four.

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in on February 1, 2020, Google featured a Google Doodle displaying a diorama crafted by Karen Collins.

On April 12, 2022, the Guilford County Board of Education approved renaming The Middle College at N.C. A&T—a boys' high school located on the university campus—to "A&T Four Middle College at North Carolina A&T State University," effective July 1, 2022.

In film

• The 2003 documentary February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four was broadcast on PBS.
• Seizing Justice: The Greensboro 4, a documentary released in 2010, aired on the Smithsonian Channel.

See also

• Chapel Hill Nine
• Timeline of the civil rights movement

Further reading

• Chafe, William Henry. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 9780195029192. Available at https://archive.org/details/civilitiescivilr0000chaf_h5c0 (registration required).
• Kowal, Rebekah J. "Staging the Greensboro Sit-Ins." TDR 48, no. 4 (Winter 2004): 135–154. doi:10.1162/1054204042442008.
• Pollitt, Daniel H. "Dime Store Demonstrations: Events and Legal Problems of First Sixty Days, 1960." Duke Law Journal 9, no. 1 (Summer 1960): 315–365. doi:10.2307/1371082. Available at https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol9/iss3/1 (subscription required).
• Walzer, Michael. "A Cup of Coffee and a Seat." Dissent 7 (Spring 1960): 111–120. Available at https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/michael-walzer-report-lunch-counter-sit-ins-durham-1960.

External links

• Civil Rights Greensboro: Greensboro sit-ins – University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Object of History: The Lunch Counter
• Greensboro Sit-Ins – CRMVet timeline
• Greensboro 1960 – History Learning Site
• Making Equality a Reality – History of Sit ins – Core online
• International Civil Rights Center & Museum – International Civil Rights Center & Museum
• Guide to the Edward Raymond Zane Letters – Duke University