It was 50 years ago today that Ezell A. Blair Jr. (also known as Jibreel Khazan), David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain sat down at a whites-only Woolworth’s counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina and ordered coffee.
It didn’t come.
Every day for six months they – and many others – came back. A bomb threat closed the store for two weeks shortly after the protest started, and still they returned.
Today, the building that housed that Woolworth’s counter re-opens as the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. NPR had a nice story this morning on the tortuous path the museum took to get funded. Apparently, some folks in the community are still holding a grudge.
So, 50 years later, a thank you to the original four and the hundreds who joined them.
I live in Southern California, grew up in New York and Minneapolis, and have family scattered in three countries. I am a liberal, and woe be to anyone who says that with any sort of moronic disclaimer (i.e. “I’m a liberal but I’m not crazy” or “I’m a liberal but I still believe terrorism is bad”). I’m a liberal, OK? No apologies. However, I do think, when I hear the word uttered by some people, of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
