greensboro sit-ins

Chris Knight's avatar

Some
of Google’s ”doodles” either fly over my head or make me cringe in
disbelief.  A lot of them are about historical events and people that at best are extremely obscure or else make me wonder “What the hell are they smoking over there?”

But the one they have for today is as good as it gets and I
recognized it immediately.  Give credit where credit is due: Google was really thoughtful about this one and how to convey it:

A depiction of the four North Carolina A&T students who sat down at the segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro (the big
city near where I’m from). That was sixty years ago today.

 This is how to SERIOUSLY
protest a wrong. Peacefully and respectfully. Nobody was hurt, nobody
was insulted, nobody was arrested because of violent behavior. These young men simply went in, sat at a whites-only ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

It was fifty years ago today, on February 1st, 1960, that four freshmen students from North Carolina A&T strolled in to the Woolworth’s on North Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina for a bite to eat.

The lunch counter was segregated, as were many places throughout the country at the time. Only white people were served at it. Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain were black. They could order food at the Woolworth’s and eat it there, but they were expected to stand and not use the stools and chairs reserved for white people.

Blair, Richmond, McNeil and McCain sat down anyway…

The four young men weren’t served their lunch, and eventually left. The next day they came back and 27 friends joined them. The next day, even more people arrived. And very soon the sit-in movement spread like wildfire throughout other ...

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