Woolworth Lunch Counter Video (History Channel)

Check out this video of the original Woolworth counter. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE&feature=player_embedded  

Tuesday, July 26, 1960

F.W. Woolworth's is desegregated. 

It took 176 days of protesting. 176 days is about the time from today until your first day of 3rd grade in August.

By August 1961, more than 70,000 people had participated in sit-ins, which resulted in more than 3,000 arrests. Sit-ins at "whites only" lunch counters inspired subsequent kneel-ins at segregated churches, sleep-ins at segregated motel lobbies, swim-ins at segregated pools, wade-ins at segregated beaches, read-ins at segregated libraries, play-ins at segregated parks, and watch-ins at segregated movies.

America would never be the same.

Source: https://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/februaryone/images/four_pic.jpg

The Greensboro Four sitting at the Woolworth's lunch counter in 1990, drinking coffee. 

Monday, July 25, 1960

F.W. Woolworth employees Charles Bess, Mattie Long, Susie Morrison,  and Jamie Robinson are the first African-Americans to eat at the lunch counter.

The headline of The Greensboro Record read: "Lunch Counters Integrated Here".

Source: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/ftp/Docs/library/sitins/19600725VoluntaryMoveLaunchedTodayByTwoStoresGR.pdf

June 1960

When N.C. A&T and Bennett College students left the Greensboro for the summer, Dudley High School students took up the charge. William Thomas led the students as the protests expanded to Meyers and Walgreens. 

African-American students from Saint Augustine College study while participating in a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter in Raleigh, NC. Two waitresses pointedly ignore them from the other side of the counter.

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/01/16/145179885/cooking-up-change-how-food-helped-fuel-the-civil-rights-movement

April 1960

April 16-17, 1960, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organized a meeting of sit-in students from all over the nation at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC.

Leader Ella Baker encouraged students to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick") to organize the effort.

Source: http://untdclibrary.blogspot.com/2014/02/ella-baker-was-unsung-civil-rights.html

 "Instead of looking to national leaders and organizations for inspiration and guidance, Baker worked fervently to organize local grassroots organizations especially among the youth. Her call for decentralization of the civil rights movement empowered many to become more politically active."

Source: http://untdclibrary.blogspot.com/2014/02/ella-baker-was-unsung-civil-rights.html

On Thursday, April 21, 1960, 45 students (including Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, and 13 Bennett College students) were arrested for trespassing as they sat at the Kress store lunch counter.

All were released without bail.

Friday, April 1, 1960 - Saturday, April 2, 1960

Students resumed sit-in activities at the Kress and F.W. Woolworth stores and began picketing on Elm and Sycamore streets. That evening at a mass meeting, more than 1,200 students pledged to continue the protests.

By Saturday, April 2, 1960, both Woolworth's and Kress Stores had closed their lunch counters. 

Source: http://vahistorical.org/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_slide/adaptive-image/public/slideshow_image/70%20woolworth%2014%27wide.jpg?itok=Y2e1PhCb

 Throughout the Sit-In movement, many stores choose to shut down their counters.

People came and sat regardless.

March 1960

Of the 2,000 citizen letters the Advisory Committee received regarding the decision to integrate the lunch counters, 73 percent favored integrated lunch counters. (That's almost 1,500 letters!)

The Greensboro Record reported a letter signed by 68 white citizens urged that "service to all customers at the lunch counters in these stores be entirely on a 'first come, first served' basis, just as it is in other areas of these establishments."

Chairman Zane and the Advisory Committee held numerous meetings with representatives from F.W. Woolworth, Kress, and other downtown businesses.

All refused to integrate. 

On March 31, a disappointed Edward Zane met with student leaders to break the news.

By the end of March, the sit-in Movement had spread to 55 cities in 13 states.

Source: http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/01/16/ap600319049_custom-711722963f0a7a06b82bb2469e02c7b82f8141c0-s800-c15.jpg