Jones stands near corner building that housed his sandwich shop at intersection of Davie, Washington streets
\Two bucked customs before sit-ins
By JIM SCHLOSSER
Staff Writer
Y If the four black college stu-
-_<1ents who were refused service at
the F.W. Woolworth lunch counter 25 years ago today really had
been hungry, they could have
gone to Bob Jones Sandwich Bar
two blocks away.
"They were probably my customers in the first place," Robert
S. (Bob) Jones says.
History has overlooked the
now-departed sandwich shop,
which specialized in beer and good
eats in the 100 block of East
Washington Street.
j The place wasn't much to look
at, but it was way ahead of its
time.
Jones' place and the Lane Drug
Store soda fountains bucked
downtown Greensboro's social customs of that era.
They were integrated.
"We were all good friends,
blacks and whites, and everyone
Columnist assesses reaction
of Greensboro leaders to sit-
ins—JK11.
enjoyed everyone else at my
place," says Jones, a salty-talking,
chain-smoking ex-sailor. "I had
the best business in Greensboro."
He integrated in 1954 — the day
the business opened as a combination pool hall, beer hall, pinball
arcade and grocery store with
ready-made sandwiches. Customers ate while sitting on crates and
empty nail kegs.
"We always felt there were no
differences in people," Jones says
of his family. "We were born and
raised on a farm in Pinnacle
(Stokes County) and we worked
with blacks. Hell, they weren't
any different from anyone else."
Lane Drug Stores — one was on
Jefferson Square and the other at
Friendly and North Elm Street —
integrated without fanfare about
six months before the sit-ins.
Dave Stang, one of the owners,
has little to say about that period.
He says he and partner brothers
did what they thought was right.
They now have one store downtown, at 116 S. Elm St. It no longer serves food.
Jones can remember only one
racial incident at the sandwich
bar.
"A man came in one day and
ordered a Coke," he says. "I was
busy so I asked this black girl who
was working for me to get it. The
man refused to take it from her. I
said, 'That's fine,' and he left. I
couldn't stop what I was doing for
a lousy six-cent Coke."
"The man came back the next
day and apologized," Jones adds.
The sandwich shop was in an
out-of-the-way section of downtown. The racial mixing attracted
little attention.
He says whatever was available
to whites at his place was available to blacks.
"I would let them use the rest-
rooms when no one else downtown
would," he says.
After he moved the business
across the street to 136 E. Washington St. in 1959, he added tables
and a sandwich bar. Specialities
were hot dogs, balogna and ham
sandwiches, beer and soda. Takeout wine was sold.
Bob Jones Sandwich Bar was
respectable enough to attract an
occasional lawyer or business ex
ecutive. Employees of Schiffman'
Jewelers around the corner wer
customers. The visiting Kingston
Trio once ordered 30 ham sand:
wiches and two cases of beer for
themselves and their crew.
One frequent customer was the
Rev. Prince Graves, who later
became a city councilman.
"Bob has always been something else," Graves says. "He's
never been white or black."
(See Jones, A2)
1 no attention to the sit-
ins at Woolworth.
"I knew what we were doing," he
Why should I worry about
someone's business?"
He figures if he had served only
one race, he would have done only
half as well financially.
"Integration allowed me to retire
at 55," says Jones, who sold his shop
in 1977. The site is vacant and will
eventually become part of_the
Greensborough Court at Hamburger Square renewal project. The
building probably will be converted
into loft apartments.
Bob Jones, who lives on a farm
south of town, voted for conservative Ronald Reagan in 1984. Jones
doesn't get mad, though, when
someone suggests that he's a liberal.
"If liking both blacks and whites J
is being liberal," he says, "I must befl
a liberal then." I
