The
Greensboro sit-ins were a series of
nonviolentNonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
protests which led to the Woolworth's department store chain reversing its policy of
racial segregationRacial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
.
While not the first
sit-inA sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...
s of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in US history. The primary event took place at the
Greensboro, North CarolinaGreensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S...
Woolworth's store, now the
International Civil Rights Center and MuseumThe International Civil Rights Center and Museum is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. The museum building is the former location of the Woolworth's in which the Greensboro sit-ins took place, beginning February 1, 1960...
.
Background
The sit-in movement used the strategy of
nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
. As far back as 1942, the
Congress of Racial EqualityThe Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
sponsored sit-ins in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, as they did in St. Louis in 1949 and
BaltimoreBaltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
in 1952. In August, 1939, African-American attorney
Samuel Wilbert TuckerSamuel Wilbert Tucker was an American lawyer and a cooperating attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People . As a founding partner in the Richmond, Virginia firm of Hill, Tucker and Marsh, he is best remembered for one of his several civil rights cases before the...
organized a sit-in at the then-segregated
Alexandria, VirginiaAlexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
, library.
Actions at Woolworth
On February 1, 1960, four students from the
Agricultural and
Technical College of North CarolinaNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is a land-grant university located in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest publicly funded historically black college in the state of North Carolina.NC A&T is a constituent institution of the University of North...
sat down at the
lunch counterA lunch counter is a small restaurant, much like a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server or person preparing the food serves from the other side of the counter, where the kitchen or limited food preparation area is. As the name suggests, they were most...
inside the Woolworth's store at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. The men, later known as the
Greensboro Four, ordered coffee. Following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
men at the "whites only" counter and the store's manager asked them to leave.
The four university freshmen -- Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan), and David Richmond -- stayed until the store closed.
The next day, more than twenty African American students who had been recruited from other campus groups came to the store to join the sit-in. White customers heckled the black students, who read books and studied to keep busy. The lunch counter staff continued to refuse service.
Newspaper reporters and a
TVTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
videographerStrictly speaking, a videographer is a person who works in the field of videography, video production — recording moving images and sound on video tape, disk, other electro-mechanical device. News broadcasting relies heavily on live television where videographers engage in electronic news...
covered the second day of peaceful demonstrations and others in the community learned of the protests. On the third day, more than 60 people came to the Woolworth's store. A statement issued by Woolworth's national headquarters said the company would "abide by local custom" and maintain its segregated policy.
More than 300 people took part on the fourth day. Organizers agreed to spread the sit-in protests to include the lunch counter at Greensboro's
KressS. H. Kress & Co. was the trading name of a chain of "five and dime" retail department stores in the United States, which operated from 1896 to 1981....
store.
As early as one week after the Greensboro sit-in had begun, students in other North Carolina towns launched their own sit-ins. Demonstrations spread to towns near Greensboro, including Winston-Salem, Durham, Raleigh, and Charlotte. Out-of-state towns like
Lexington, KentuckyThe Woolworth, F.W., Building was a historic department store building located in Lexington, Kentucky, that served as a retail location for the F. W. Woolworth Company from 1946 to 1990. It was designed by Frederick W...
also saw protests.
The movement then spread to other Southern cities including
Richmond, VirginiaRichmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, and
Nashville, TennesseeNashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
where the students of the
Nashville Student MovementThe Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee...
had been trained for a sit-in by civil rights activist James Lawson and had already started the process when Greensboro occurred. Although the majority of these protests were peaceful, there were instances where protests became violent. For example, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, tensions rose between blacks and whites and fights broke out. Another city where sit-ins occurred was Jackson, Mississippi. Students from Tougaloo College staged a sit-in on May 28th, 1963. The incident is recorded in the autobiography of one of the members in attendance, Anne Moody. Moody described the treatment of the whites who were at the counter when they sat down, as well as the formation of the mob in the store and how they managed to finally leave the store.
As the sit-ins continued, tensions grew in Greensboro and students began a far-reaching boycott of stores that had segregated lunch counters. Sales at the boycotted stores dropped by a third, leading the stores' owners to abandon their segregation policies. Black employees of Greensboro's Woolworth's store were the first to be served at the store's lunch counter, on July 25, 1960. The next day, the entire Woolworth's chain was desegregated, serving blacks and whites alike.
Impact
Despite sometimes violent reaction to the sit-ins, these demonstrations eventually led to positive results. For example, the sit-ins received significant media and government attention. When the Woolworth's sit-in began, the Greensboro newspaper published daily articles on the growth and impact of the demonstration. The sit-ins made headlines in other cities as well, as the demonstrations spread throughout the Southern states. A Charlotte newspaper published an article on February 9, 1960, describing the state-wide sit-ins and the resulting closures of dozens of lunch counters. Furthermore, on March 16, 1960, President Eisenhower supported the students and expressed his sympathy for those who were fighting for their human and civil rights.
President EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
expressed his concern, saying that he was:
In many towns, the sit-ins were successful in achieving the desegregation of lunch counters and other public places. Nashville's students attained citywide desegregation in May, 1960.
The media picked up this issue and covered it nationwide, beginning with lunch counters and spreading to other forms of public accommodation, including transport facilities, art galleries, beaches, parks, swimming pools, libraries, and even museums around the South. The
Civil Rights Act of 1964The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
mandated desegregation in public accommodations.
In 1993, a portion of the lunch counter was acquired by the
Smithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. The International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, contains four chairs from the Woolworth counter along with photos of the original four protesters, a timeline of the events, and headlines from the media. The street south of the site was named February One Place, in commemoration of the date of the first Greensboro sit-in.
See also
- American Civil Rights Movement
- American Civil Rights Movement Timeline
- F.W. Woolworth Company
- February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four
February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four is a 2003 feature film by Rebecca Cerese and Steven Channing. Nationally broadcast on Independent Lens on PBS, it tells the story of The Greensboro Four, four young college freshman, Joe McNeil, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Ezell Blair Jr...
- African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...
External links