Hello, and welcome to HistoryPod.
On 1 February 1960 the Greensboro sit-ins
began when four black students sat at the
‘whites only’ lunch counter in the Woolworth
department store.
In 1960 over a quarter of the population of
the North Carolina city
of Greensboro was black.
The state had a range of segregation laws
in place that generally left them with poorer
quality facilities than their white counterparts
and denied many the right to vote.
This segregation permeated throughout daily
life thanks to numerous Jim Crow laws.
Determined to draw attention to the injustice
of the situation, four students planned a
simple yet effective protest.
After buying some small items from the Woolworth
department store in Greensboro, the four students
then took seats at the segregated lunch counter.
The counter staff, in line with company policy,
refused to serve them and later called the
police after the Greensboro Four, as they
became known, refused to leave.
However, as the men had not taken any provocative
action the police were unable to intervene
and they stayed seated at the counter until
the store closed that evening.
The sit-in continued the next day as more
black students joined the protest.
Encouraged by local press coverage that soon
became national, similar protests soon broke
out at other segregated lunch counters across
America.
Despite this pressure, many stores refused
to change their policies and it wasn’t until
25 July that the lunch counter at Woolworth’s
in Greensboro was finally integrated.
The protests had been front-page news around
the country, and went on to spur the desegregation
of hundreds of public spaces across the United
States.
