North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and its community are preparing to commemorate the 65th anniversary of when four A&T freshmen jump-started the civil rights movement on February 1, 1960, with a single act: sitting in at the lunch counter at the downtown Greensboro Woolworth’s and waiting for service.
The annual Sit-In Anniversary Breakfast and Wreath Laying is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 31, beginning at the North Carolina A&T Alumni-Foundation Event Center at 200 N. Benbow Road.
It celebrates the A&T Four: retired Air Force Major Gen. Joseph McNeil, who’s expected to attend, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.) and the late Franklin McCain Sr. and the late David Richmond Jr.
The theme is “Perseverance: The Power of an Ageless Evolution,” and the event will kick off with breakfast at 7 a.m. and a program featuring retired U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield as the guest speaker at 8 a.m.
According to a description of the upcoming event from the university, “The program will pay tribute to the unsung heroes whose contributions were instrumental in the success and legacy of the A&T Four’s historic act of resistance that ultimately changed public accommodations laws across the U.S. Among them are A&T classmates and faculty, as well as students and faculty from Bennett College, the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and Dudley High School, Greensboro residents who provided safe havens, supplied and resources to the peaceful protesters and local activists who laid the groundwork for civil rights advocacy long before the sit-in.”
The program will also feature the presentation of the N.C. A&T Human Rights Medal, which is the university’s highest honor for contributions to civil rights, civil liberties or human rights. The medal will go to an honoree whose name will be revealed at the event. Past recipients include North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls and MacArthur Genius Grant winner the Rev. William J. Barber II, the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the late Julius Chambers, the third director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
After the breakfast and early morning presentation, participants will walk to the February One monument and lay a wreath in memory of McCain and Richmond at 10 a.m.
The N.C. A&T Fellowship Gospel Choir, which will perform “Life Every Voice” at the breakfast, will also sing at the wreath ceremony.
Over 500 students will attend a social justice discussion, which is being offered in partnership with Guilford County Schools from 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. in Harrison Auditorium.
A very worthwhile event. Proud to have this historical event as part of Greensboro’s legacy. Courageous young men changed the course of history.
I believe the song is “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Thank you for these Awesome Events. Our History is a landmark for our knowledge. Thank you.
My goodness! Where did you read “Our History is a landmark for our knowledge?” I doubt this was an original thought. It does not make sense wherever you picked it up. I understand the desire to be proud. However, the Greensboro “Four” was not the first to practice a sit-in at a lunch counter, and most likely got the idea from other “sit-ins” that came before. Advance your pride but be honest that the Greensboro sit-ins were not an original idea.
I have heard this tripe before about the Greensboro sit-in not being the first. That’s fine and true but what made the Greensboro sit-in movement so powerful and worth celebrating was the staying power of the protestors which led to national news coverage and even move sit-in movements across the country that drove real change.
You should go take the tour at the sit-in museum as they cover this distinction in detail.
Chris I know you’re proud of black history month but I’ll ask you again why don’t we celebrate Native American month. Americans stole their land that we live on today Remember Native Americans were here long before blacks were
In the legal sense Indians did not “own” land. They were inhabitants who arrived earlier than Europeans. Owning land was not a concept that Indians understood or practiced. Indians simply occupied the land.
Native American month is November of each year BTW.
What made the staying power of the Civil Rights Movement was not the sit-ins, it was not Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream Speech, and it was not riots perpetrated by Blacks in cities. It was liberal Whites, especially Jews, that inserted themselves into the movement. It was the confluence of pivotal events coming together at the same time. In 1960 the White population in the US was about 88%. President Kennedy had been assassinated making Lyndon Johnson president, one of the most destructive presidents in US history. White Baby Boomers, especially women, were rejecting their parents’ values in a revolutionary fashion. The aging White Baby Boomers continue to exert the same traits from the 1960s. So, I opine that without Whites joining forces with Blacks, the Civil Rights Movement would have fizzled out.
Wow. That is near the top of ignorant statements I have read here on the Rhino. Sure whites and the Jewish community helped drive the change but the real change came from peaceful protests that elevated the issues to those in the noth east of the country to the depth of the vilonce of whites attempts to keep the black community in “their place”. The news coverage of police violence in Mississippi for example was a huge wake up call.
But in the end, it took the majority of our communities to drive the change. But the leadership of the protests that kept them peaceful (except for the police viloence) was what drove the real change. And most of those leaders where black.
Chris, I stand by my comments without reservations. The NAACP, the Urban League and CORE were founded by both Whites and Blacks. Whites gave the appearance of unity in the movement; White liberals had power and inserted that power for the benefit of Blacks; Whites, particularly Jews, supported the movement financially to the point that the bulk of the money behind the Urban League, CORE and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1964 came from Whites. Without the addition of Whites into the movement, the Civil Rights Movement would have fizzled out and become a footnote in history citing the riots and burning of towns.