Today marks the 57th anniversary of the series of the Greensboro sit-ins for racial inequality. On February 1, 1960, four African American students from North Carolina A&T State University walked into a Woolworth five-and-dime restaurant to sit down and order lunch. However, the manager of the Greensboro Woolworth had his own intentions: to keep the lunch counter a strict white only policy. When asked to leave, the four young men refused and remained in their seats at the lunch counter. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond peacefully protested at the counter until closing. Their docile resistance and peaceful protest helped spark a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality in the South.

 The next day, more than twenty black students from other campus groups joined the sit-in. Women from Bennett College attended from their all-black school as well. White customers harassed the black students, who read books and studied to keep busy while protesting. Newspaper reporters and  local TV stations covered that second day, and others in the community learned of the protests. On the third day, more than 60 people came to the Woolworth store. On the fourth day, more than 300 people took part in this demonstration. As the numbers of protestors at the Greensboro Woolworth store increased, other students of North Carolina schools began their own chain of peaceful protests, too. While most of the protests were peaceful, there were also acts of violence. In Tennessee, tension rose between whites and blacks, and eventually broke out into fights.

 As the sit-ins continued, tension escalated. The “Greensboro four” had such a powerful impact on students in their surrounding areas that the students also began boycotting all segregated lunch counters in the Greensboro area. Sales at the boycotted store locations dropped by a third, causing owners to drop their segregation policies After policies had been abandoned, Clarence Harris, the store manager of Woolworth, asked 3 of his black employees to change from their work uniforms to their street clothes and be the first African American people to order a meal from the counter. Today this famous counter can be found in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

 Junior McKinley Heath says, “It makes me so happy that I can have friends with different racial backgrounds and being friends with those who are different from me. I wouldn’t want to imagine life with segregated schools because diversity is such a key aspect in our society!” The sit-ins that these four young men started struck the nation. Their courage and belief in equality changed history.