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Greensboro:
Where The Movement Began
Reviewed by M^^
Edwin M. Yoder Jr.
[LUNCH AT THE FIVE AND
TEN. By Miles Wolff Jr. Stein
and Day. 191 pages. $5.95.
Woolworth's Lunch Counter, 1960
Miles Wolff Jr.
It was never obvious why
Greensboro, of all the smaller
cities M the mid-South, should
have given birth to the lunch-
counter sit-ins of February 1960.
The town has its special qualities, of course — among them a
becoming c 1 i m a t e of political
tolerance that may be traced to
the influence of its 200-year-old
Quaker community. Yet the
Woolworth's lunch counter was
set then, as it is today, in a/
decaying downtown of unprepos4
sessing character — so much sol
that Louis Mumford, according
to a local tale, once called us
"the parking-lot city," while
years earlier Will Rogers had
been reminded by Greensboro's
lone skyscraper of the first tgpth
in a baby's gaping mouth.Fl<\
Conservative \£*r
North Carolina Agricultural
and Technical College, the all-
Negro institution that supplied
the sit-inners (four freshmen,
three of them Greensboro boys)
had been a conservative school,
firmly set in the Southern pattern of educational paternalism
and overwhelmingly North Carolinian in flavor: no headquarters
of the "outside agitators" on
whom many a southerner tends
to blame any challenge to stale
or senseless custom. In the late
Fifties, both Dr. King and Thur-
good Marshall had been denied
permission to speak on the A&T
campus; both were "too controversial."
I But it is not the purpose of
Miles Wolff Jr., the young author of this remarkable account,
to delve into the remote origins
of the sit-inr, rather to examine
their impact on the city and on ]
the region. According to Mr.
Wolff it was Ralph Johns, a
local habeWasher and political
"character" (he once tried out
in Hollywood for the role of
Rudolph Valentino) who prodded
the four A&T freshmen to take
their seats p o 1 i t e 1 y at Wool-
worth's all-white lunch counter.
'Massive'
Whoever inspired them, the
four were pioneers with a future. They began "the most
massive demonstration in the
| history of the South" — a movement that spred to 68 cities in 13
states by summer.
"The four boys (Wolff writes)
. . sat down at the Woolworth
counter at a time when the
world situation was relatively
stable, when there was little
news to distract readers ... in
a moderate Southern city, conscious of its image and unwilling
to have the students arrested or
inflict violence on them ...
More important than the time or
place was the form. Here was a
protest against one of the most
obvious forms of discrimination,
in stores that invited Negroes to
shop."
Although measurable community sentiment seemed to agree I
with them that it was unjust to
ask Negroes to stand at a count-
where whites could sit, in a
store where they were otheBgiee
served on the same terms^rne
city was slow to act. Negotiations drew out; the sit-ins came
and went; byx April, i the first
'arrests for "trespass'toccurred.
Woolworth's local manager, no
racist, felt that his store had
been "singled out"; he would
integrate if other downtown res-
ta
feared loss of white customers!
could be equitably distributed.!
Woolworth's had no national pol-f
icy; it adhered to "local custom." ^P
. Lonely action
(Finally, neither the City Coun-i
cil (although it had been inte-|
m grated since 1951) nor the!
ChambeT^>fCommerce viewed |
the sit-ins, as they would today,
as a clearly focused issue of I
wide implications. It was, in
fact, the lonely initiative of |
Councilman Ed Zane, a plain-
spoken Tennessean and a vice
president of the mammoth Burlington Industries textile firm,
that led to the appointment of a |
negotiating committee. Other-
wise the sit-in s might have I
wound down as vacation approached or exploded into riot. '
Violence was a constant possi-
b i 1 i t y. Young white toughs I
(county boys, the city folk said)
crowded to the stores to razz
the demonstrators, occupying |
lunch counter stools in a "counter sit-in." In neighboring Rich-
Object Description
| Title | Greensboro: Where The Movement Began |
| Date | 1970-06 |
| Date approximate? | 1 |
| Creator | Yoder, Edwin M., Jr. |
| Subject headings | Greensboro Sit-ins, Greensboro, N.C., 1960 |
| Topics | Business desegregation and sit-ins, 1960 |
| Place | Greensboro (N.C.) |
| Description |
In this Greensboro Daily News article, Edwin Yoder Jr. reviews Miles Wolff Jr.'s book, Lunch At The Five & 10, about the February 1960 sit-ins at Greensboro's Woolworth store. Yoder begins by discussing the backdrop for the sit-ins, claiming Greensboro had a "decaying downtown" and that North Carolina A&T State University, where the four original protesters were students, was a conservative university "set in the Southern pattern of educational paternalism." In his book, Wolff states that business owner Ralph Johns influenced the four students—David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan)—to sit-in, setting off similar protests throughout the South. He then argues that city councilman Edward Zane's negotiating committee led to the desegregation of the counter. He also discusses the young whites who taunt the demonstrators and orchestrate a counter sit-in. He concludes by claiming that the economic effect of a boycott of downtown stores was what really led to desegregation in Greensboro. Yoder writes that Wolff's book "recaptured those days with a sense of their drama, with deft characterization of the principals and with a sure feeling for the mood." This article was clipped and saved in a scrapbook by Clarence "Curly" Harris, manager of the Greensboro Woolworth store at the time of the 1960 sit-ins. Also included are Harris' comments on the article. Harris argues that money was not the cause for Woolworth's decision to desegregate, that Woolworth did not have anyone arrested, and that Greensboro's downtown was "the dominant area in the city" in 1960. |
| Type | text |
| Original format | clippings;scrapbooks |
| Original dimensions | 9" 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 | 6 Scrapbooks |
| Box | 2 |
| Folder | Folders 2-3: Scrapbook 2: Sit/In, Feb. 1, 1960, Woolworth, Greensboro, NC, 1963-1980 |
| Finding aid link | http://libapps.uncg.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=506 |
| Rights statement | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Additional rights information | IN COPYRIGHT. This item is subject to copyright. Contact the contributing institution for permission to reuse. |
| Object ID | MSS01414.002.002.1083 |
| Digital publisher | The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University Libraries, PO Box 26170, Greensboro NC 27402-6170, 336.334.5305 -- http://library.uncg.edu/ |
| Sponsor | LSTA grant administered by the North Carolina State Library -- http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/ld/grants/lsta.html |
| OCLC number | 884368230 |
Page/Item Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | Greensboro: Where The Movement Began Reviewed by M^^ Edwin M. Yoder Jr. [LUNCH AT THE FIVE AND TEN. By Miles Wolff Jr. Stein and Day. 191 pages. $5.95. Woolworth's Lunch Counter, 1960 Miles Wolff Jr. It was never obvious why Greensboro, of all the smaller cities M the mid-South, should have given birth to the lunch- counter sit-ins of February 1960. The town has its special qualities, of course — among them a becoming c 1 i m a t e of political tolerance that may be traced to the influence of its 200-year-old Quaker community. Yet the Woolworth's lunch counter was set then, as it is today, in a/ decaying downtown of unprepos4 sessing character — so much sol that Louis Mumford, according to a local tale, once called us "the parking-lot city" while years earlier Will Rogers had been reminded by Greensboro's lone skyscraper of the first tgpth in a baby's gaping mouth.Fl<\ Conservative \£*r North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, the all- Negro institution that supplied the sit-inners (four freshmen, three of them Greensboro boys) had been a conservative school, firmly set in the Southern pattern of educational paternalism and overwhelmingly North Carolinian in flavor: no headquarters of the "outside agitators" on whom many a southerner tends to blame any challenge to stale or senseless custom. In the late Fifties, both Dr. King and Thur- good Marshall had been denied permission to speak on the A&T campus; both were "too controversial." I But it is not the purpose of Miles Wolff Jr., the young author of this remarkable account, to delve into the remote origins of the sit-inr, rather to examine their impact on the city and on ] the region. According to Mr. Wolff it was Ralph Johns, a local habeWasher and political "character" (he once tried out in Hollywood for the role of Rudolph Valentino) who prodded the four A&T freshmen to take their seats p o 1 i t e 1 y at Wool- worth's all-white lunch counter. 'Massive' Whoever inspired them, the four were pioneers with a future. They began "the most massive demonstration in the | history of the South" — a movement that spred to 68 cities in 13 states by summer. "The four boys (Wolff writes) . . sat down at the Woolworth counter at a time when the world situation was relatively stable, when there was little news to distract readers ... in a moderate Southern city, conscious of its image and unwilling to have the students arrested or inflict violence on them ... More important than the time or place was the form. Here was a protest against one of the most obvious forms of discrimination, in stores that invited Negroes to shop." Although measurable community sentiment seemed to agree I with them that it was unjust to ask Negroes to stand at a count- where whites could sit, in a store where they were otheBgiee served on the same terms^rne city was slow to act. Negotiations drew out; the sit-ins came and went; byx April, i the first 'arrests for "trespass'toccurred. Woolworth's local manager, no racist, felt that his store had been "singled out"; he would integrate if other downtown res- ta feared loss of white customers! could be equitably distributed.! Woolworth's had no national pol-f icy; it adhered to "local custom." ^P . Lonely action (Finally, neither the City Coun-i cil (although it had been inte-| m grated since 1951) nor the! ChambeT^>fCommerce viewed | the sit-ins, as they would today, as a clearly focused issue of I wide implications. It was, in fact, the lonely initiative of | Councilman Ed Zane, a plain- spoken Tennessean and a vice president of the mammoth Burlington Industries textile firm, that led to the appointment of a | negotiating committee. Other- wise the sit-in s might have I wound down as vacation approached or exploded into riot. ' Violence was a constant possi- b i 1 i t y. Young white toughs I (county boys, the city folk said) crowded to the stores to razz the demonstrators, occupying | lunch counter stools in a "counter sit-in." In neighboring Rich- |
