Courtesy of North Carolina A&T University
EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. – The National Park Service has designated the F.W. Woolworth Co. Building, where the four teenage HBCU freshmen from the North Carolina A&T State University staged a sit-in that buoyed the Civil Rights Movement, a National Historic Landmark .
On Feb. 1, 1960, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.), Joseph McNeil, the late Franklin McCain Sr., and the late David Richmond seated themselves at Woolworth’s whites-only lunch counter in downtown Greensboro. Students from Bennett College, Dudley High School, and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro joined the HBCU students in their peaceful protest, which others replicated across the country to stand up against racial inequality until Woolworths guaranteed equal access to all of its lunch counters.
The sit-ins led by the HBCU students who would become known as the “A&T Four” provided strong momentum for the inclusion of public accommodations as a protected category in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Public accommodations are businesses and venues open to the public, such as movie theaters, sports arenas, and, yes, lunch counters.