RALEIGH, N.C. — Three members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation paid tribute to the 62nd anniversary of the Greensboro Four sit-in by introducing a resolution Tuesday that called on all states to teach about the demonstration in history classes.
On Feb. 1, 1960, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan and Joseph McNeil, four Black students from N.C. A&T State University, visited the F.W. Woolworth department store’s lunch counter to protest against the business for serving lunch only to white customers. Their actions sparked similar sit-ins around North Carolina and a national movement that led more than 700,000 students, clergy members and others to fight for racial equality in the South.
U.S. Reps. Kathy Manning, Alma Adams and G.K. Butterfield asked the House colleagues to support their resolution honoring the Greensboro Four for contributing to the civil rights movement and inspiring college students to get involved.
The representatives also asked their colleagues to recognize that ethnic and racial diversity enriches the United States.
Greensboro sit-in
At 17 years old, Richmond, McCain, Khazan and McNeil entered the Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro to buy school supplies, with a plan to challenge the store’s racial inequalities.
They knew they would be allowed to buy the supplies, but they also knew that the lunch counter in the store would turn them away for being Black.
According to NCPedia, the four planned to make the argument that if the store was willing to take their money for school supplies, then they could also take their money at the lunch counter.
The store refused, the police were called and the four stood their ground, staying at the counter until the business closed.
The men returned daily and read at the lunch counter with a growing number of others joining their protests. That included the Bennett Belles, a group of students at Bennett College, a then-all-female school not far from A&T’s campus in Greensboro.
The Greensboro Four continued to hold a peaceful protest despite being insulted, hit with water balloons, having counter-protests formed against them and bomb threats being made.
Nearly six months later, on July 26, 1960, Woolworth agreed to integrate the lunch counter, with many other businesses doing the same.
Adams taught at Bennett College and represented the Greensboro area before her district was redrawn around Charlotte. Adams helped encourage civic participation at the school.
“We, as a nation, have a responsibility to learn from our past and work diligently to carry on the legacy of these four men by ensuring equal rights for all people, and by protecting the civil rights they fought so hard to win,” Adams said in a written statement.
Butterfield grew up in Wilson while the city was segregated and became a civil rights attorney after witnessing the discrimination against his father for being Black and successful. He recently announced his retirement from Congress after seeing the influence of Black voters reduced in his district.
