Friday, January 29, 2010

Civil rights museum now speaks for the Greensboro Four - USATODAY.com

Civil rights museum now speaks for the Greensboro Four - USATODAY.com: On Feb.1, 1960, Franklin McCain and three fellow African American college students walked into the F.W. Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro, N.C., sat down at the lunch counter and ignited a movement that re-shaped American society.

On Monday, exactly 50 years after that historic act, the new International Civil Rights Center & Museum opens in the former five-and-dime store. Almost 16 years in the making, the museum's centerpiece is the original lunch counter where McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond and Joseph McNeil took a seat at the segregated facility and politely, but steadfastly, refused to leave. Eventually joined by others, they returned day after day to stage a sit-in that would continue until late July, when at last, the eating area was de-segregated. Their protest sparked similar sit-ins throughout the South, enlivening the civil rights movement.