Nonviolent Resistance in the Civil Rights Movement
5 CHAPTER ONE David Richmond Franklin McCain Ezell Blair Jr and Joseph McNeil became known as the Greensboro Four It was around three o’clock in the afternoon on February 1 1960 Four young men entered a Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro North Carolina They bought school supplies After paying they sat down at the store’s lunch counter and tried to order coffee The waitress refused to serve them SITTING FOR CHANGE
CIVIL RIGHTS VOICES Franklin McCain I certainly wasn’t afraid And I wasn’t afraid because I was too angry to be afraid Franklin McCain was one of the Greensboro Four whose nonviolent protest at the Woolworth’s lunch counter helped sit-ins spread throughout the South He graduated from college with a degree in chemistry and biology in 1964 The next year he married Bettye Davis who also took part in the Greensboro sit-ins He went on to work with multiple civil rights organizations In 1991 McCain was recognized with an honorary doctorate degree for his role in the civil rights movement 6 The waitress was following store rules The lunch counter was segregated Segregation rules said African Americans had to do things separately from whites The Woolworth’s lunch counter was marked Whites Only The young men were college freshmen They had been talking about segregation for months They had each experienced it and knew it was wrong They wanted to resist segregation by refusing to obey the unjust rules
Students peacefully wait to be served during the second day of the Greensboro sit-ins They decided to hold a sit-in They chose Woolworth’s because it had both a store and a lunch counter They wanted to show that Woolworth’s was being unfair Woolworth’s was willing to take their money in the store But it would not let them sit at the lunch counter The store’s manager asked the students to leave They refused As they sat some white people gathered to watch them Many called the young men insulting names The students sat and waited When the store closed for the day they got up and left 7
