Greensboro Sit-Ins

On February 1, 1960, four Black college freshmen did something simple but powerful: they sat down at a lunch counter and asked to be served. Their names were Ezell Blair Jr. (who later changed his name to Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil. They were students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. The four friends walked into the Woolworth's department store on South Elm Street and sat at the whites-only lunch counter. Black customers could buy things at Woolworth's, but they were not allowed to sit at the lunch counter and eat. When a waitress told them she could not serve them, the four students stayed in their seats. They sat quietly until the store closed for the day. The next morning, they came back — this time with 25 additional students, 29 in total. By the third day, the group had grown to 85. By the fourth day, over 300 students filled the store, including some white students who joined in support. Within two weeks, sit-ins had spread to other cities in North Carolina. Within two months, students in 54 cities across 9 states were holding their own sit-ins at segregated businesses. The movement inspired the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960, which became one of the most important civil rights organizations of the decade. The students drew on the nonviolent principles taught by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., refusing to respond to insults or violence with anything but quiet dignity. On July 25, 1960, Woolworth's officially desegregated its lunch counters. The original counter where the four freshmen sat is now preserved at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Four young men, with nothing but courage and a belief in fairness, started a movement that changed the nation.