A Civil Rights icon who shaped history from a lunch counter in Greensboro has died- (1942-2025).
McNeil was one of four Black freshmen from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, today known as North Carolina A&T State University, who sat down at the segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro and asked to be served on Feb. 1, 1960. When staff refused to serve them, they refused to leave.
Joseph Alfred McNeil was born March 25, 1942, in Wilmington. He spent his childhood in the port city and graduated from Williston Senior High School. He came from a comfortable middle-class family and did well enough to earn a full scholarship to A&T. There, he quickly earned the adoration of Khazan…