The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth’s and other establishments to change their segregationist policies. --from History.com
On this page you can find several examples of primary sources -- photos, newspaper articles, and memos which were all created during the time of the sit-ins.
A group of 20 A&T College students occupied lunch counter seats at the downtown F.W. Woolworth Co. store on the second day of the protest. Four shown from left are Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Billy Smith and Clarence Henderson. [Source: Greensboro.com Archive]
The Greensboro Four: David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil. [Source: Jack Moebes Photo Archive]
[Source: Greensboro Daily News]
[Source: High Point Enterprise newspaper]
When the Greensboro Woolworth store was closed in 1993, a portion of the original "sit-in" counter was donated to the Smithsonian Institution.
[Source: National Museum of American History]
Are you interested in finding more primary documents dealing with the sit-ins? The Greensboro Public Library maintains an index to related articles appearing in the Greensboro News and Record. Find it at this link.
Or visit Digital Library of Georgia's collection online: Greensboro Voices: Voicing Observations in Civil Rights and Equality Struggles
[Source: Civil Rights Greensboro]
We had played over in our minds possible scenarios, and to the best of our abilities we had determined how we were gonna conduct ourselves given those scenarios. But we did walk in that day — I guess it was about four-thirty — and we sat at a lunch counter where blacks never sat before. And people started to look at us. The help, many of whom were black, looked at us in disbelief too. They were concerned about our safety. We asked for service, and we were denied, and we expected to be denied. We asked why couldn't we be served, and obviously we weren't given a reasonable answer and it was our intent to sit there until they decided to serve us. — Joseph McNeil.
[Source: Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement, by Hampton & Fayer]
As a student, Anne Moody experienced firsthand the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights movement—and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs, and deadly force that were used to destroy it.
Coming of Age in Mississippi by