Greensboro Woolworth Lunch Counter Sit-In Stool

Sit-ins as a form of nonviolent protest started during the first half of the 20th century. In 1942, several African-American students occupied stools at the Jack Spratt Coffee Shop in Chicago, and after police refused to remove the students, the restaurant changed its policy and began serving Black customers.

A decade of sit-ins between 1944-1954 finally broke segregation in St. Louis, Missouri. Edna Mae Griffin organized sit-ins at Katz Drugs in Des Moines, and ultimately prevailed in court to abolish segregation in Iowa. Ten women in Wichita, Kansas led a successful sit-in at Dockum Drugs in 1958.

Although the practice had been in place for almost two decades prior, the most famous and impactful sit-in occurred in early 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

On February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College walked into the Woolworth in Greensboro and sat at the lunch counter with the intention of ordering a meal.

The manager of the Woolworth store refused to serve the four Black men, citing the “whites-only” policy.

Undaunted, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Billy Smith, and Clarence Henderson refused to budge, setting in motion a massive movement, not only in their location, but across the nation.

They stayed until closing that day and returned with fifteen more the following day. By the third day, three hundred peaceful protesters were on hand, and that number would ultimately grow to one thousand.

Meanwhile, the trend of sit-ins expanded across the nation with a series of sit-ins in Nashville, Houston, and at least a dozen other cities just two weeks after the start of the Greensboro sit-in, drawing national and international attention to the efforts to desegregate the southern states.

Within the first year, sit-ins took place in over 100 southern cities, and the pattern of nonviolent, direct action led to the systematic dismantling of Jim Crow laws and segregation, and by 1964, the Civil Rights Act brought a legal end to the era of physical separation of races in facilities and services.

The Greensboro Lunch Counter exhibit at the National Museum of African-American History And Culture features a replica of the lunch counter where visitors can sit on stools and listen to a video presentation that interprets this momentous historical event. There is also an actual stool from the Greensboro Woolworth Lunch Counter encased in plexiglass on display.