The Woolworth's Sit-In

Four students from NC A&T sit in at Woolworth's counter on Feb. 1, 1960

I missed a very important anniversary four days ago.

On February 1, 1960, four African American college students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University sat down at a lunch counter and ordered coffee. They were at Woolworth's, in downtown Greensboro, NC, where I had eaten dozens of times as a child when my family left our small town of Reidsville to shop in the big city of Greensboro.  However, these young students were not able to do what I could do any time simply because they were black. The lunch counter at Woolworth's was all white. The students were denied service, but they politely refused to leave. They kept their seats,  following the policy of nonviolent resistance.

The next day, more than twenty courageous black students came to Woolworth's. They sat quietly and read books, ignoring the heckling and taunting of some of the whites in the crowd. Yet they were still denied service. It was store policy, after all. This time, there was media coverage of the sit-in.

On the third day, more than 60 people came to the protest, yet Woolworth's still would not budge. On the fourth day more than 300 people participated in the protest, so many that the organizers decided to send some to conduct a sit-in at Kress.

Within a week, their courageous refusal to leave without being served until closing had started a peaceful sit-in movement across North Carolina, one that was eventually joined by scores of students and that lasted for months. Civil Rights protests likes this one spread quickly across the south, to Richmond and Nashville, ultimately leading to the desegregation of the lunch counters and restaurants they targeted. But it took months. The African American employees of Woolworth's were the first to be served at that lunch counter on July 25, 1960. The lunch counter was officially desegregated the next day, on July 26, 1960.

The original Woolworth's lunch counter and stools from Greensboro where the first four students sat are still in their original location. In a happening of great irony, the old Woolworth's building has become the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. It opened on February 1, 2010, the 50th anniversary of the sit-in one year ago. A section of the lunch counter can also be seen in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Small, quiet actions of great courage change the world.

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum, Greensboro, NC