Review of Miles Wolff's Book, Lunch At The Five And Ten.
By Clarence L. Harris, Manager of the "Five and Ten"
Footnote: Page 13-1. "Not much different from any other Wool worth's
store in the nation." Wolff's opinion. The Greensboro store was built as
a model store, patterned after the store on Fifth Avenue, New York.
696 Greensboro was among the top seventy-five stores in the country, and
of the three hundred stores in the southeast ranked in the top six
(in 1960).
Footnote 2. "Downtown is deteriorating, and there are few places to
eat." This book was written ten years after the sit-in, and the city was
feeling the effect of the demonstrations. Fact is, that in 1960, downtown
was the dominant retail area in Greensboro, and there were many places to
eat. Two cafeterias went out of businsss during the decade--because of
the sit-ins.
Footnote 3: Page 14. "Just talking over a cup of coffee." Harris
does not drink coffee; but drinks one "coke" 3:00 p.m. every day with the
newspaper advertising counsellor, then discussing the advertising program.
Footnote 4: Page 15. "Harris was in the office." Correction: Harris
was inspecting the kitchen.
Footnote 5. "Two or three years earlier." Correction: One year,
three months.
Review of Miles Wolff's book Lunch at the five And ten
Date
1980
Creator
Harris, Clarence Lee
Subject headings
Greensboro Sit-ins, Greensboro, N.C., 1960
Topics
Business desegregation and sit-ins, 1960
Place
Greensboro (N.C.)
Description
In this 20-page document, Clarence "Curly" Harris, gives a detailed review of facts presented in Miles Wolff's 1970 book about the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, Lunch at the 5 & 10. Harris, who was manager of the Greensboro Woolworth store at the time of the sit-ins, provides extensive footnotes refining and refuting various points with particular emphasis on how he and the F.W. Woolworth Co. are presented in the book. Harris is extremely specific about locations within the store, the timeline of the demonstrations, and about his store's sales and merchandising. He is also concerned with matters such as photographs being taken inside the store without permission and the sales decline that he attributes to the sit-ins. Harris stresses his own ethical strengths and those of the company and maintains that he was not opposed to integration per se, but to coercion and pressure. While the review is undated, it appears to have been written well after publication of the book, as Harris references store closures and developments in downtown Greensboro that did not happen until the late 1970s.
Type
text;image
Original format
scrapbooks
Original dimensions
8.5" x 11"
Original publisher
[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]
Language
en
Contributing institution
Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries
Source collection
MSS141 Clarence Lee Harris Papers, circa 1916-1997
Series/grouping
3 Manuscripts
Box
1
Folder
Folder 8: Handwritten notes on Miles Wolff's Lunch at the Five and Ten, 1970
Review of Miles Wolff's Book, Lunch At The Five And Ten.
By Clarence L. Harris, Manager of the "Five and Ten"
Footnote: Page 13-1. "Not much different from any other Wool worth's
store in the nation." Wolff's opinion. The Greensboro store was built as
a model store, patterned after the store on Fifth Avenue, New York.
696 Greensboro was among the top seventy-five stores in the country, and
of the three hundred stores in the southeast ranked in the top six
(in 1960).
Footnote 2. "Downtown is deteriorating, and there are few places to
eat." This book was written ten years after the sit-in, and the city was
feeling the effect of the demonstrations. Fact is, that in 1960, downtown
was the dominant retail area in Greensboro, and there were many places to
eat. Two cafeterias went out of businsss during the decade--because of
the sit-ins.
Footnote 3: Page 14. "Just talking over a cup of coffee." Harris
does not drink coffee; but drinks one "coke" 3:00 p.m. every day with the
newspaper advertising counsellor, then discussing the advertising program.
Footnote 4: Page 15. "Harris was in the office." Correction: Harris
was inspecting the kitchen.
Footnote 5. "Two or three years earlier." Correction: One year,
three months.
