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Daring act by four teenagers tumbles racial barriers
This was one bull session that produced history instead of hot air.
It was about 3 in the morning, Feb. 1, 1960.
The setting was Room 2128 in Scott Hall, a
dormitory on the N.C. A&T State University
campus.
J First-year students David Richmond, Frank-
^^jrTi McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. and Joseph McNeil
had spent that night, and many evenings before, complaining about what it was like being
black in Greensboro and the South.
'We finally felt we were being hypocritical
because we were doing the same thing that
everyone else had done, nothing," says McCain, now an executive with Celanese Corp. in
Charlotte. "Up to then, we were armchair
activists."
They decided to go downtown that day and
seek service at F.W. Woolworth's whites-only
lunch counter.
And they did.
History remembers them as four brave
young men, but seated at the counter 25 years
ago, they were four frightened freshmen.
"I could feel my legs and hands trembling,"
recalls Blair, who now lives in New Bedford,
Mass., and goes by the name Jibreel Khazan.
"I was perspiring. I really had to go to the
bathroom bad. You can't image what it was
like, being 17, Afro-American, sitting in a position like that, expecting the worst."
They knew such audacity would shock
Greensboro. But they had no idea the event
would spark similiar sit-ins at segregated lunch
counters all over the South or become the subject of books or later cause the state of North
Carolina to erect a commemorative historical
marker in downtown Greensboro.
The sit-ins and related sidewalk demonstrations downtown lasted off and on for nearly six
months. The movement came to involve
(See Challenge, A7)
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| Full text | Daring act by four teenagers tumbles racial barriers This was one bull session that produced history instead of hot air. It was about 3 in the morning, Feb. 1, 1960. The setting was Room 2128 in Scott Hall, a dormitory on the N.C. A&T State University campus. J First-year students David Richmond, Frank- ^^jrTi McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. and Joseph McNeil had spent that night, and many evenings before, complaining about what it was like being black in Greensboro and the South. 'We finally felt we were being hypocritical because we were doing the same thing that everyone else had done, nothing," says McCain, now an executive with Celanese Corp. in Charlotte. "Up to then, we were armchair activists." They decided to go downtown that day and seek service at F.W. Woolworth's whites-only lunch counter. And they did. History remembers them as four brave young men, but seated at the counter 25 years ago, they were four frightened freshmen. "I could feel my legs and hands trembling," recalls Blair, who now lives in New Bedford, Mass., and goes by the name Jibreel Khazan. "I was perspiring. I really had to go to the bathroom bad. You can't image what it was like, being 17, Afro-American, sitting in a position like that, expecting the worst." They knew such audacity would shock Greensboro. But they had no idea the event would spark similiar sit-ins at segregated lunch counters all over the South or become the subject of books or later cause the state of North Carolina to erect a commemorative historical marker in downtown Greensboro. The sit-ins and related sidewalk demonstrations downtown lasted off and on for nearly six months. The movement came to involve (See Challenge, A7) |
