The Spirit of Greensboro

Black History Month [2] gets underway this year by honoring a memorable milestone. Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins.

The early 1960s were a time of heightened—yet unfulfilled—expectations about civil rights. Jim Crow was still firmly intact despite a Supreme Court decision that desegregated schools and despite the passage of civil rights laws in 1957 and 1960.

Then around 4:45 p.m. on February 1, 1960, four young men from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro. They politely asked for coffee.

“I’m sorry but we don’t serve colored here,” a white waitress told them.

The four young men sat at the counter until it closed at 5:30 p.m.

Then all hell broke lose.

The four men weren’t arrested, though threats to that effect were certainly made. But news of what they had done ignited the passions of African-Americans throughout the South. Other sit-ins soon took place in Virginia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

In Chattanooga, the copy-cat sit-ins sparked a riot. In Nashville, one sit-in supporter’s house was bombed. Elsewhere, crowds of angry whites appeared at lunch counters to harass the protestors, spitting, cursing and throwing food. In one case, someone set a protestor’s coat on fire.

Years later, Franklin McCain, one of the original Greensboro Four, explained why the sit-ins happened when they did.

“The reason for February 1, 1960, was that we talked about his thing quite a lot, just sitting around the room. All of us knew that we wanted to do something. But we concluded in all honesty that there had been thousands other folks who’d done the same things we had done [up to that point]. And here we were criticizing our parents, criticizing our university administration and criticizing everybody in our community for not having done anything. ‘And you know,’ I said to the guys, ‘we’re really no better than anybody else. There’s nothing unique about what we’re doing.’ I was getting tired of just talking about [doing something].”

The Greensboro Four knew their protest would stir up trouble. But they had no idea how fast the sit-ins would bring about change. By the end of February, some Greensboro lunch counters were already peacefully integrated. Most stores realized that prolonged battles were bad for business. In the coming months, similar successes followed throughout the South. However, segregationists held progress at bay in some states until the passage of the powerful 1964 Civil Rights Act.

After 50 years, Greensboro has finally turned the old Woolworth building into the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. Today is the museum’s grand opening. Hopefully, this new institution will keep alive the spirit of the Greensboro Four. “Inevitably, people ask me ‘What can I do?’” McCain once told an interviewer. “What kind of question is that? Look around you.”

That’s great advice. The civil rights struggles of the 1960s are history. But we live with many of the same issues today. We should all ask where we can take a stand–or take a seat–and make the biggest difference.