Courage at the Greensboro Lunch Counter
Fifty years ago, four college students sat down to request lunch service at a North Carolina Woolworth's and ignited a struggle
- By Owen Edwards
- Smithsonian magazine, February 2010, Subscribe
After being refused service at a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's, four African-American men launched a protest that lasted six months and helped change America. Jack Moebes / Corbis
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Restaging the Greensboro Counter Sit-in
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On February 1, 1960, four young African-American men, freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, entered the Greensboro Woolworth’s and sat down on stools that had, until that moment, been occupied exclusively by white customers. The four—Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph McNeil and David Richmond—asked to be served, and were refused. But they did not get up and leave. Indeed, they launched a protest that lasted six months and helped change America. A section of that historic counter is now held by the National Museum of American History, where the chairman of the division of politics and reform, Harry Rubenstein, calls it “a significant part of a larger collection about participation in our political system.” The story behind it is central to the epic struggle of the civil rights movement.
William Yeingst, chairman of the museum’s division of home and community life, says the Greensboro protest “inspired similar actions in the state and elsewhere in the South. What the students were confronting was not the law, but rather a cultural system that defined racial relations.”
Joseph McNeil, 67, now a retired Air Force major general living on Long Island, New York, says the idea of staging a sit-in to protest the ingrained injustice had been around awhile. “I grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and even in high school, we thought about doing something like that,” he recalls. After graduating, McNeil moved with his family to New York, then returned to the South to study engineering physics at the technical college in Greensboro.
On the way back to school after Christmas vacation during his freshman year, he observed the shift in his status as he traveled south by bus. “In Philadelphia,” he remembers, “I could eat anywhere in the bus station. By Maryland, that had changed.” And in the Greyhound depot in Richmond, Virginia, McNeil couldn’t buy a hot dog at a food counter reserved for whites. “I was still the same person, but I was treated differently.” Once at school, he and three of his friends decided to confront segregation. “To face this kind of experience and not challenge it meant we were part of the problem,” McNeil recalls.
The Woolworth’s itself, with marble stairs and 25,000 square feet of retail space, was one of the company’s flagship stores. The lunch counter, where diners faced rose-tinted mirrors, generated significant profits. “It really required incredible courage and sacrifice for those four students to sit down there,” Yeingst says.
News of the sit-in spread quickly, thanks in part to a photograph taken the first day by Jack Moebes of the Greensboro Record and stories in the paper by Marvin Sykes and Jo Spivey. Nonviolent demonstrations cropped up outside the store, while other protesters had a turn at the counter. Sit-ins erupted in other North Carolina cities and segregationist states.
By February 4, African-Americans, mainly students, occupied 63 of the 66 seats at the counter (waitresses sat in the remaining three). Protesters ready to assume their place crowded the aisles. After six months of diminished sales and unflattering publicity, Woolworth’s desegregated the lunch counter—an astonishing victory for nonviolent protest. “The sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth’s was one of the early and pivotal events that inaugurated the student-led phase of the civil rights movement,” Yeingst says.
More than three decades later, in October 1993, Yeingst learned Woolworth’s was closing the Greensboro store as part of a company-wide downsizing. “I called the manager right away,” he recalls, “and my colleague Lonnie Bunch and I went down and met with African-American city council members and a group called Sit-In Movement Inc.” (Bunch is now the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.) Woolworth’s officials agreed that a piece of the counter belonged at the Smithsonian, and volunteers from the local carpenters’ union removed an eight-foot section with four stools. “We placed the counter within sight of the flag that inspired the national anthem,” Yeingst says of the museum exhibit.
When I asked McNeil if he had returned to Woolworth’s to eat after the sit-in ended, he laughed, saying: “Well, I went back when I got to school the next September. But the food was bland, and the apple pie wasn’t that good. So it’s fair to say I didn’t go back often.”
Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.
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Related topics: Black History National Museum of American History Americana Civil Rights 1960s
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Comments (9)
I met Joseph McNeil many years ago when he was a brigadier-general. He was visiting my unit and when I introduced him as a true American hero I noticed that he was a bit taken aback. I got the distinct impression that he was a shy man and one who shunned the spotlight. I also got the impression of a very humble man when he was introduced to my fellow airmen. I always thought that it was amazing that a man who was so humble could have taken the position and the risks that he and his friends did and could end up changing our country for the better.
Posted by David Burns on January 21,2012 | 10:35 AM
Thank you for this article. I knew and marched with Franklin, Ezell (Jebreel Khazan), Joseph, David Richmond and many other students in Greensboro many days. I was a student at North Carolina A & T. I was there when Dr. King and Andrew Young came to Greensboro to help. Ultimately, I was elected the president of my first, second and senior classes. I am very proud of the courage those four yourg men showed. I am proud to have been a part of the movement.
Ironically, the same lunch counters and restaurants that refused to serve Blacks were the same restaurants that served the food to the students in jail after we were arrested.
It is a good feeling knowing that, at least, I stood for what I believed. This is a lesson I got from my parents. My father is deceased. However, my mother, a former teacher, is 112 and is still living and has just been certified as the oldest African American in the United States. She has lived in three different centuries and was able to vote for and witness the election of the first African American President of the U.S.
Posted by Sara B. Rearden on February 9,2011 | 07:02 PM
Yes, Woolworth's did employ black people at the lunch counter and elsewhere in the store. See this website and read the blurb about Geneva Tisdale:
http://www.februaryonedocumentary.com/castcharacters.html
When Woolworth's integrated the lunch counters, the first black people they allowed to eat there were employees.
Posted by Jennifer on January 25,2011 | 02:49 AM
I just came across this article & photo again and it puzzled me why the man behind the counter is also African-American. Did Woolworth's employ African-Americans at a counter where they refused to serve them or was this just a staged photo??
Posted by Ben Wolf on April 4,2010 | 08:02 PM
I grew up in the 60's & 70's in Akron, Ohio, but my parents was rasied in the south. Listening to them talk about the conditions in the south made me proud that African Americans displayed the courage to go against the status quo and participated in the lunch counter sit-in. It further emphasized the extreme need to bring the problems of racism to the forefront. The Civil Rights Movement in the south and throughout the United States during these times was truly inspirational and uplifting.
Posted by Cheryl J. Shavers on February 17,2010 | 05:51 AM
I flew with Joe McNeil in the Air Force and we became good friends as well as comrades in arms. He was always a very humble guy and I never knew of this part of his history until many years later after he had been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. I fondly remember the times we spent "deadheading" in the back of a C-141 Starlifter transport jet doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle! It is a pleasure know Joe McNeil as a friend, a fellow crew member, a senior officer, and a shaper of history!
Posted by Kelly Curtis on February 3,2010 | 04:32 PM
Had to chuckled at the comment re: the quality of the food. I suppose one could say that nothing tastes as good as being treated fairly feels. Thank you to all those protesters back in the day for having the courage to do the sit ins so now we don't have to deal with being treated like 2d class citizens in order to get a meal, be it bland or excellent.
Posted by Sabrina Messenger on February 1,2010 | 11:22 AM
Looking forward to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum (former Woolworth building) honoring the student sit ins opening on Feb. 1, 2010!! www.sitinmovement.com
Posted by Elliot on January 28,2010 | 10:55 AM
My husband graduated from A&T State University and I attended one year. He knew Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., (Jebreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil and David Richmond. I knew Ezell Balir (Jebreel Kazan). They helped the Civil Rights Movement to spiral upwards and encouraged people to reach in other directions to make an equal change, such as: education, medical care, housing, employment and the military. Their courage and stamina was a great cause and effect. Thanks to all of you.
Posted by Rachel Lewis Murphy on January 27,2010 | 03:37 PM