Greensboro sit-ins


The Greensboro Four: (left to right) David Richmond,
Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil

Date: February 1 – July 25, 1960
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina

The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth 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 most well-known sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement. They are considered a catalyst to the subsequent sit-in movement. These sit-ins led to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in US history. The primary event took place at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth store, now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.

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Events at Woolworth


The protests took place at this
Woolworth five-and-dime store.

On February 1, 1960, at 4:30 pm ET (16:30), the four sat down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth store at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. The men, who would become known as the A&T Four or the Greensboro Four, had purchased toothpaste and other products from a desegregated counter at the store with no problems, but were then refused service at the store's lunch counter when they each asked for a cup of coffee. Following store policy, staff refused to serve the black men at the "whites only" counter, and store manager Clarence Harris asked them to leave. However, the four freshmen stayed until the store closed that night, and then went back to the North Carolina A&T University campus, where they recruited more students to join them the next day.

The next day, on February 2, 1960, more than twenty black students, recruited from other campus groups, joined the sit-in. This group included four women, and they sat with school work to stay busy, as they sat from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The group was again refused service, and were harassed by the white customers at the Woolworth store. However, the sit-ins made local news on the second day, with reporters, a TV cameraman and police officers present throughout the day. Back on campus that night, the Student Executive Committee for Justice was organized, and the committee sent a letter asking the president of F.W. Woolworth to "take a firm stand to eliminate discrimination."

On February 3, 1960, the number grew to over 60, including students from Dudley High School. An estimated one third of the protesters were women, many of them students from Bennett College, a historically black women's college in Greensboro. White customers heckled the black students, who read books and studied, while the lunch counter staff continued to refuse service. North Carolina's official chaplain of the Ku Klux Klan, George Dorsett, as well as other members of the Klan, were present. The F.W. Woolworth national headquarters said that the company would "abide by local custom" and maintain its segregation policy.

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