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By JIM SCHLOSSER DONALD W. PATTERSON and KELLY MITCHELL-CLARK Staff Writers Tw*mt,v-five years later, it only tii'<es' a ir.'p back to the historn site to see the change. ■ Every weekday, blacks and whites crowd side by side at the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Greensboro and dig into vegetable plates and talk about everything from the quality of Duke basketball to Duke Power buses. What was so startling to Ima Edwards and other whites back then, is common now. "I just accepted it.... That was just the way things were at the time," says Edwards, lunch counter manager. "As far as things go here now, the black is the same as the white." Edwards was a waitress at the Woolworth bakery counter on Feb. 1, 1960, when four blacks from N,C. A&T State University climbed into seats at the nearby whites-only lunch counter and ordered coffee and doughnuts. Denied service, they refused to leave. The sit-ins, as they came to be known, lasted off and on for nearly SIT-INS: Race relations are better^ but problems still remain six months and began a movement that eventually caused Jim Crow barriers to tumble throughout the South. As the 25th anniversary of the sit-ins is observed Friday, the most blatant traces of old Dixie — the "colored" balcony at the Carolina Theatre, separate water fountains at City Hall, blacks-only bleachers at Memorial Stadium — have long since vanished in Greensboro. Interviews with nearly 75 blacks and whites in the past three weeks on the status of race relations in Greensboro indicate the city has made tremendous strides in the past 25 years: the mood is calmer, voices have been lowered, the races are mingling. Yet nearly all blacks interviewed stress that racism hasn't gone away. They feel it is the reason many blacks are in unemployment lines or stuck in low-paying jobs and live in substandard housing. Only a handful of whites interviewed see racism as a serious A gracious white man circulates I among black and white customers at I the K&W Cafeteria in Friendly I Shopping Center. He is Boyd Mor- I ris, the cafeteria's public relations I director. In the early 1960s, Morris I stood in the door of the old Mayfair I Cafeteria downtown and barred I blacks from entering. "I would like to be remembered ; a man of good will, friendship and I peace," says Morris, who was I Greensboro mayor from 1955 to | 1957. "I've had no problem with in- jration. I have many black | friends." Once a year, the Rev. Otis Hair- I ston of black Shiloh Baptist Church, j takes the pulpit at all-white 16th Street Baptist Church in the Cone I Mills area. The white church's pastor, the Rev. Bob Duncan, does the same at Shiloh. It's an example of increased communication between | black and white churches. On the negative side, racial jokes I can still be heard, but nowadays, in more private settings. Heads still turn at the sight of I racially mixed couples. "Black students call you white- I boy lover or Oreo cookie," says I Mary Dickerson of Los Angeles, a I Bennett College student who occa- I sionally dates whites. Blacks complain of being snubbed I in department stores by white sales I clerks or being eagle-eyed by secu- I rity guards as potential shoplifters. I In classrooms, they say, white I teachers patronize black students | and don't demand as much of them. "White teachers think they're all I dumb," says Ed Whitfield, a former problem today. They feel inequities of the past have disappeared. "I think the white community feels pretty smug about the way things are," says Frances Norton, a white psychologist. "It's more satisfied ... than the black community." Today's racial problems — most related to economic issues and to a feeling that blacks still lack political power — will be difficult to solve, according to those interviewed. It won't be as easy as integrating a lunch counter. Still, Greensboro is a far different city than in the late 1960s when the National Guard was called in twice to quell rioting in the southeast part of the city. "I think we have come a helluva long way," says Franklin McCain, one of the four original sit-in participants. "In spite of the gloom and doom you hear, overall, you have to write me off as positive and encouraged. That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory " The Rev. Jim Miller, white pas- city council candidate and father of two. Blacks continue to be suspicious of the criminal justice system, especially when all-white juries acquit Klansmen of crimes committed in the black community. Black lawyers complain that blacks feel they must hire white lawyers to get a fair shake. These concerns show that Greensboro has not yet achieved that "colorblind" society that idealists spoke longingly of 25 years ago. Some blacks have given up hope that the day will ever come. "I don't think we'll ever, ever, not until Judgment Day, not have racism," says Adrianne Carter, an A&T sophomore from Greensboro. "It's just not going to be that way." Others of both races aren't as pessimistic, but many have trouble defining ideal race relations. "It's like describing what good plum pudding is, when you've never had plum pudding," says black Greensboro lawyer Michael Lee. "Where should we be at this point — how do you gauge that?" asks John Forbis, Greensboro's white mayor. Charles Fairley, a member of the local NAACP board, says he will know race relations in Greensboro are good "when the day ever comes that I don't have to worry whether there are good race relations." In trying to achieve good race relations, Greensboro has gone overboard for blacks, some whites say. They point to the modified ward system of electing city council — installed in 1983 even though vot- tor of the integrated Presbyterian Church of the Cross on Phillips Avenue, says, "I think there has developed in Greensboro an openness to differences which I have not seen in other cities. Greensboro is almost like an oasis. But ... there are still some deep-seated problems." On the positive side, blacks score touchdowns and win induction into the honor society at previously all-white Page and Grimsley high schools. Whites make contributions at previously all-black Dudley High School. Blacks and whites dance at Da- dio's on High Point Road. They discuss business over lunch at the exclusive Greensboro City Club downtown. They lean on lawn- mowers outside $150,000 homes in integrated Carriage Hills in northwest Greensboro and discuss the merits of BMWs versus Volvos. Old adversaries seem to be trying to make amends. (See Progress, A6) ers had rejected such a plan in five referendums. Whites ask, "What more could they want?" "I think there is getting to be a point where there is reverse discrimination," says David Cook, a 53-year-old white who is unemployed. "There are other discriminations that are just as bad: religion, age, you name it." Some whites don't hide their disgust for affirmative action programs and busing. They cite the latter as the reason Greensboro schools have gone from a 72-28 white-nonwhite percentage in 1960 to a 49-51 white- nonwhite percentage today. "I think the pendulum has swung too far," says Wesley Clark, a white conservative who helped direct U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms' re-election campaign in Greensboro last year. "Our goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of results." George Simkins, long-time, Greensboro NAACP president, says any suggestion that whites have done too much to help blacks is ridiculous. He says integrated schools, dime stores, libraries, golf courses and work places resulted from black pressure. "One thing about this city, whites don't give vou anything — you have to fight for everything'," says Simkins, who was arrested in 1956 when he tried to tee off at the city- owned Gillespie Park Golf Course. The city dosed the course for seven years rather than integrate it. Playing golf and sitting at lunch counters together are not enough, says Lewis Brandon, a behind-the- scenes leader in the sit-ins.