50th Anniversary of the Greensboro Sit in "The Greensboro Four"

On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina walked into a Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This seemingly mundane everyday act sent shock waves through Greensboro, through North Carolina, and through the nation. The counter behind which these four young men sat was for whites only.


This simple act was like a stone thrown into a still pond. It sent out ripples across the nation that stirred people to take notice and to act. As the news of lunch-counter sit-ins spread, it opened eyes, inspired more to join the protests, and agitated some Americans into violence. Most importantly, it forced communities throughout the United States to confront segregation right where they sat down for a cup of coffee or tuna fish sandwich.

The sit-ins were a part of the nonviolent direct action strategy espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1955, nonviolent direct action had been successfully used in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycotts. Led by Dr. King and Rosa Parks, the black citizens of Montgomery had desegregated the city’s public buses. In the early 1960s, black college students throughout the South would put this strategy into action in an attempt to desegregate lunch counters.

Via: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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