In February 1960, four college students went to the local Woolworth store. They bought some things and then sat down at the lunch counter to order coffee. But they were refused service because of the color of their skin. The manager told them to leave. The students decided to stay, sitting quietly and waiting for their coffee until the store closed.
The next day, the four students—Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond—came back and ordered coffee again. They were refused again.
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Franklin McCain. “I was too angry to be afraid. If I was lucky, I thought I might be taken to jail for a long time. And if I wasn’t lucky, I might be going back to campus in a pine box.”
McCain also remembered an older white woman who came up to them. He thought she might say something bad like others had done. But she quietly whispered, “Boys, I’m so proud of you.”
He said, “What I learned from that was don’t ever judge someone before you get to know them and talk to them.”
These four students, later known as the Greensboro Four, were joined by 20 more students that day. They sat quietly, reading and studying while some white customers shouted at them.
On the third day, over 60 students joined. On the fourth day, there were 300 students at the lunch counter. After one week, students started sit-ins all over North Carolina. Soon, the protests spread to other cities and states in the South.
On July 25, 1960, Woolworth finally gave in. Black employees at the Greensboro Woolworth’s were the first to be served at the lunch counter. The next day, the entire Woolworth’s chain began serving black and white customers equally. The sit-ins helped end segregation in public places, and in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, making segregation illegal in public spaces.
Today, the Greensboro Woolworth’s store is the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. A part of the lunch counter where the four students sat is kept at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., reminding us of a time when skin color kept people from simply sitting down and ordering a cup of coffee.