The Greensboro Sit-Ins

As the United States entered the 1960s, much of American life remained racially segregated. In the south, the Jim Crow system of legally imposed racial segregation remained largely in place. One way that African Americans experienced racial discrimination was their experience in variety stores. African Americans were allowed to shop and make purchases in variety stores, but they were not allowed to sit and eat at the lunch counters that were typically found in these stores. Greensboro, North Carolina was a city where this practice was common. This city had a rapidly growing population and segregated conditions were a characteristic of the area. Greensboro was one of the few southern cities that accepted the Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education which overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in public schools. However, the city only allowed minimum racial integration and its lunch counters remained segregated.

         On February 1, 1960, a group of four college students challenged the societal order of lunch counter discrimination. These four students were from the all-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College(A&T). On that day, the students entered Woolworth’s variety story in Greensboro. They made purchases of toothpaste and school supplies and carefully collected their receipts. After making their purchases, the young men took seats at the lunch counter in the store and were refused service. They proceeded to ask why the store would sell them toothpaste but not coffee, and then they left the lunch counter. These students came to be known as the Greensboro Four- Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. These young men were inspired to undertake an act of public protest against segregation by Ralph Johns who was the white owner of a clothing store who employed students from A&T. The four students were self-motivated to act and there were no civil rights organizations involved in the original sit-in.

         News of the sit-in spread quickly throughout the A&T campus and the city of Greensboro. By the end of that week, the sit-ins had grown though the support of students from a black women’s college, Bennett College. Women from Bennett College had been planning sit-ins on their own in the fall of 1959. Accounts of the Greensboro sit-ins mostly credit the “Greensboro Four” from A&T, but women from Bennett College also played a role, but at the time, they chose to not speak publicly about the extent of their involvement. A well-organized student protest movement was in place by the end of the first week of February 1960. A bomb scare caused the students to agree to a two-week truce, and the the sit-ins resumed on April 1. The following day, two stores closed their lunch counters, but the students responded with a boycott and street demonstration demanding the end of segregation at lunch counters. This boycott was effective as Woolworth’s sales fell 20 percent and many whites stayed away to avoid trouble.

         News spread about the sit-ins in Greensboro and information of these protests was circulated throughout the United States. On August 4, 1960, the newspaper Arizona Sun contained an article on the effectiveness of the sit-ins in Greensboro. This article describes the background information on the sit-ins and the four students who began the movement. It also describes the end of segregation at the lunch counters in the Woolworth and Kress stores after the managers agreed with the Mayor’s advisory committee to provide integrated service. This article demonstrates that the Greensboro sit-ins were effective in ending segregation and discrimination at lunch counters in the city. The “Greensboro Four” achieved their goal and gained support from other protestors. As a result of the Greensboro sit-ins, sit-in protests spread to other cities especially in the south. The Greensboro sit-ins also represented a generational shift in the Civil Rights movement as college students became move involved in protests and demonstrations to achieve equality and end racial discrimination.

         The Greensboro sit-ins are an example of a twentieth-century protest that occurred in the United States. These sit-ins represent the issues that were occurring in the larger context of the Civil Rights movement. These protests connect to the passage “The Life of the Political Community” in Gaudium et Spes. This passage discusses the legitimacy of defending one’s own rights and the rights of fellow citizens. The “Greensboro Four” desired to have the right to sit and eat at a lunch counter without experiencing discrimination or segregation. This passage in Gaudium et Spes also discusses protesting against things which are required for the common good. In the case of the Greensboro sit-ins, the protesters believed that they were acting on behalf of the common good for the African Americans in the south who were experiencing inequality and segregation in public accommodations. The Greensboro sit-ins are a twentieth-century United States protest that connects to Gaudium et Spes because the protesters desired change for the common good of African American citizens. 

African American students (left to right: Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, William Smith, and Clarence Henderson) holding a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, February 2, 1960. Image courtesy of 

Britannica.

The Greensboro Four walk out of Woolworth’s on the first day of the sit-in. Image courtesy of

The Greensboro Photo Gallery

 

For more information on the Greensboro Sit-Ins, watch the video on the Woolworth Lunch Counter. Additional information on the sit-in can be found in a 1960 edition of The Detroit Tribune.