Counter Attack

On February 1, 1960, four Black college students risked their lives and changed the world: they sat down and ordered coffee at the Woolworth’s department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. They couldn’t get their order until July 25, 1960, when the lunch counter was desegregated, along with lunch counters all over the country.

Instead of serving the young men on February 1, Woolworth’s closed the counter. The next day, four times four came back. The numbers continued to grow, as did boycotts and protests across the country. So did the violence. Whites waving Confederate flags showed up at the lunch counters to serve physical and verbal abuse. So did police, to arrest the Blacks.

“I couldn’t live the lie” – said one of the first four protesters, Joseph A. McNeil. The lie was the Jim Crow South and segregation, legal since the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Even though Plessy was invalidated by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the South had no interest in complying. Woolworth’s made Black store patrons stand at a take-out window. The chairs at the counter were Whites Only.

The four original protesters, all freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College: Jibreel Khasan (formerly Ezell A. Blair Jr., “Junior”), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond.

Why Woolworth’s? In 1960, Woolworth’s was one of the major retailers in the world. Founder Frank Woolworth pioneered the 5-and-10-cent store. At its peak, Woolworth’s had more than 8,000 stores worldwide. Their New York headquarters, the Woolworth Building, at 233 Broadway, was the tallest building in the world when it was constructed in 1913. It held that title until 1930, when the Empire State Building opened. https://nylandmarks.org/explore-ny/the-woolworth-building/

The lunch counter sit-in also appears in the theatrical feature film Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013). “Inspired by a true story” – the life of Eugene Allen – the movie stars Forest Whitaker as a White House staff member, and incorporates history from slavery to Obama. The cast includes Oprah, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, David Oyelowo, and Robin Williams (Eisenhower), John Cusak (Nixon), Liev Schreiber (LBJ), Alan Rickman (Reagan), and, mind-blowingly, Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan. The movie is based on an article by Wil Haygood, an NEH and Guggenheim fellow. https://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1476752990

Official trailer:

For information about the real White House staff, see The President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas by James Beard award winner Adrian Miller, the Soul Food Scholar. https://adrianemiller.com/

A section of the Woolworth’s lunch counter is now at the Smithsonian.

Jim Crow Must Go.