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The civil rights movement was a social movement and campaign in the United States from 1954 to 1968 that aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which was most commonly employed against African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, and had modern roots in the 1940s. After years of direct actions and grassroots protests, the movement made its largest legislative and judicial gains during the 1960s. The movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.
Greensboro is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. At the 2020 census, its population was 299,035; it was estimated to be 302,296 in 2023. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte and Raleigh, and the 69th-most populous city in the United States. The population of the Greensboro–High Point metropolitan statistical area was estimated to be 789,842 in 2023. The Piedmont Triad region, of which Greensboro is the most populous city, had an estimated population of 1,736,099 in 2023.
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to move unless their demands are met. The often clearly visible demonstrations are intended to spread awareness among the public, or disrupt the goings-on of the protested organization. Lunch counter sit-ins were a nonviolent form of protest used to oppose segregation during the civil rights movement, and often provoked heckling and violence from those opposed to their message.
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in February to July 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store — now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum — in Greensboro, North Carolina, which led to the F. W. Woolworth Company department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. While not the first sit-in of the civil rights movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, and also the best-known sit-ins of the civil rights movement. They are considered a catalyst to the subsequent sit-in movement, in which 70,000 people participated. This sit-in was a contributing factor in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a protest to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and its emphasis on disciplined nonviolence. It was part of a broader sit-in movement that spread across the southern United States in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina.
February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four is a 2003 documentary 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, Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Ezell Blair, Jr. now Jibreel Khazan, who staged a sit-in at Woolworth's in 1960 to protest segregation practices. Based largely on first hand accounts and rare archival footage, the documentary film February One documents one volatile winter in Greensboro that not only challenged public accommodation customs and laws in North Carolina, but served as one of the blueprints for the nonviolent protests that occurred across the South and the nation during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
A lunch counter or luncheonette is a small restaurant, similar to a diner, where the patron sits on a stool on one side of the counter and the server serves food from the opposite side of the counter, where the kitchen or food preparation area is located. As the name suggests, they were primarily used for the lunch meal. Lunch counters were once commonly located inside variety stores, pharmacies, and department stores in the United States throughout the 20th century. The intent of the lunch counter in a store was to profit from serving hungry shoppers, and to attract people to the store so that they might buy merchandise.
The Friendship Nine, or Rock Hill Nine, was a group of African-American men who went to jail after staging a sit-in at a segregated McCrory's lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961. The group gained nationwide attention because they followed the 1960 Nashville sit-ins strategy of "Jail, No Bail", which lessened the huge financial burden civil rights groups were facing as the sit-in movement spread across the South. They became known as the Friendship Nine because eight of the nine men were students at Rock Hill's Friendship Junior College.
Barbara Rose Johns Powell was a leader in the American civil rights movement. On April 23, 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education opportunities at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. After securing NAACP legal support, the Moton students filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, the only student-initiated case consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring "separate but equal" public schools unconstitutional.
The International Civil Rights Center & Museum (ICRCM) is located in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. Its building formerly housed the Woolworth's, the site of a nonviolent protest in the civil rights movement. Four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University started the Greensboro sit-ins at a "whites only" lunch counter on February 1, 1960. The four students were Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond. The next day there were twenty students. The aim of the museum's founders is to ensure that history remembers the actions of the A&T Four, those who joined them in the daily Woolworth's sit-ins, and others around the country who took part in sit-ins and in the civil rights movement. The Museum is currently supported by earned admissions and Museum Store revenues. The project also receives donations from private donors as a means of continuing its operations. The museum was founded in 1993 and officially opened its doors fifty years to the day after the sit-in movements in Greensboro NC.
Jibreel Khazan is a civil rights activist who is best known as a member of the Greensboro Four, a group of African American college students who, on February 1, 1960, sat down at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina challenging the store's policy of denying service to non-white customers. The protests and the subsequent events were major milestones in the Civil Rights Movement.
Joseph Alfred McNeil is a retired major general in the United States Air Force who is best known for being a member of the Greensboro Four—a group of African American college students who, on February 1, 1960, sat down at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, challenging the store's policy of denying service to non-white customers.
Randolph T. Blackwell was an American activist of the Civil Rights Movement, serving in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, amongst other organizations. Coretta Scott King described him as an "unsung giant" of nonviolent social change.
The Royal Ice Cream sit-in was a nonviolent protest in Durham, North Carolina, that led to a court case on the legality of segregated facilities. The demonstration took place on June 23, 1957 when a group of African American protesters, led by Reverend Douglas E. Moore, entered the Royal Ice Cream Parlor and sat in the section reserved for white patrons. When asked to move, the protesters refused and were arrested for trespassing. The case was appealed unsuccessfully to the County and State Superior Courts.
Franklin Eugene McCain was an American civil rights activist and member of the Greensboro Four. McCain, along with fellow North Carolina A&T State University students Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph McNeil and David Richmond, staged a sit-in protest at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, after they were refused service due to the color of their skin. Their actions were credited with launching the Greensboro sit-ins, a massive protest across state lines involving mostly students who took a stand against discrimination in restaurants and stores by refusing to leave when service was denied to them. The sit-ins successfully brought about the reversal of Woolworth's policy of racial segregation in their southern stores, and increased national sentiment to the fight of African-Americans in the south.
February One is the name of the 2002 monument dedicated to Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond who were collectively known as the Greensboro Four. The 15-foot bronze and marble monument is located on the western edge of the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. James Barnhill, the sculptor who created the monument, was inspired by the historic 1960 image of the four college aged men leaving the downtown Greensboro Woolworth store after holding a sit-in protest of the company's policy of segregating its lunch counters. The sit-in protests were a significant event in the Civil Rights Movement due to increasing national sentiment of the fight for the civil rights of African-Americans during this period in American history.
David Leinail Richmond was a civil rights activist for most of his life, but he was best known for being one of the Greensboro Four. Richmond was a student at North Carolina A&T during the time of the Greensboro protests, but never ended up graduating from A&T. He felt pressure from the residual celebrity of being one of the Greensboro Four; his life was threatened in Greensboro and he was forced to move to Franklin, NC. Eventually, he moved back to Greensboro to take care of his father. Richmond was awarded the Levi Coffin Award for leadership in human rights by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce in 1980. Richmond seemed to be haunted by the fact that he could not do more to improve his world, and battled alcoholism and depression. He died in 1990 and was awarded a posthumous honorary doctorate degree from North Carolina A&T
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
The sit-in movement, sit-in campaign, or student sit-in movement, was a wave of sit-ins that followed the Greensboro sit-ins on February 1, 1960, led by students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical Institute (A&T). The sit-in movement employed the tactic of nonviolent direct action and was a pivotal event during the Civil Rights Movement.
References
- ↑ "Telling a story of justice". Greensboro News and Record. 21 July 2010. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
- ↑ Binkovitz, Leah. "Sneak Peek of "Seizing Justice: The Greensboro 4"". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
- ↑ "Seizing justice: The Greensboro 4". National Museum of American History. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
