The Greensboro Sit-Ins

"With Their Bodies They Obstructed the Wheels of Injustice"

The Beginning

• On February 1st, 1960, four African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University sat at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.

Non Violent Protest

• The four students, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, and Joseph McNeil, requested service and were ultimatly declinced by the store owner. After being asked to leave, the students remained seated as a simple act of protest that would change the nation.

During the 1960s, a majority of the southern states were governed by Jim Crow Laws that segregated whites and black in education, businesses, and other facets in the community.

Community Support

• After the first day of the sit-ins, 29 students attended the following day.
• The next day, the protest grew even more as nearby white nursing students also protest in the sit ins

For six months, students from around the country of different races supported the Greensboro Sit ins by holding sitins themselves .

The F.W. Woolworth's lunch counter was deemed desegregated on July 25th, 1960.

Seeking Justice

• The acts of the four Greensboro men spread an important message across the nation.
• Humans all have rights and those rights are the same for all regardless of race.

Resources

• National Museum of American History. (n.d.). Sitting for justice. Retrieved from http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/sitting/homepage.htm
• John Locke Foundation. (2015). Greensboro sitin. Retrieved from http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/299/entry