Jim Crow Museum
1010 Campus Drive
Big Rapids, MI 49307
[email protected]
(231) 591-5873
Lunch counter section and other objects from the F. W. Woolworth Company store on Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina, now on display in the National Museum of American History.
Gift of the F. W. Woolworth Corporation
In 1960, if you were an African American, you were not allowed to sit here--the lunch counter of the F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. Racial inequality pervaded American life. And throughout the South, a racist legal system known as "Jim Crow" segregated people by race in restrooms, hotels, restaurants, and most other public accommodations. On February 1, 1960, four African American students sat down at this counter and tried to order lunch. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond were all enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. Their "passive sit-down demand" began one of the first sustained sit-ins and ignited a youth-led movement to challenge injustice and racial inequality throughout the South. In
On the second day of the sit-in at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, Joseph McNeil and Franklin McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson.Courtesy of the News and Record of Greensboro
Greensboro, hundreds of students, civil rights organizations,churches, and members of the community joined in a six-month-long protest. They challenged the company's policy of racial discrimination by sitting at the lunch counter and, later, organizing an economic boycott of the store. Their defiance heightened many Americans' awareness of racial injustice and ultimately led to the desegregation of the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter on July 25, 1960.
A Timeline of the Struggle for Equal Rights in America
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1865 | 13th Amendment outlaws slavery |
| 1865 | Ku Klux Klan (KKK) founded to maintain white supremacy through intimidation and violence |
| 1865 | Freedman's Bureau formed during Reconstruction to assist freed slaves in the South |
| 1866 | Civil Rights Act grants citizenship to native-born Americans except Indians |
| 1868 | 14th Amendment grants equal protection of the laws to African Americans |
| 1870 | 15th Amendment establishes the right of African American males to vote |
| 1875 | Civil Rights Act grants equal access to public accommodations |
| 1883 | Supreme Court nullifies Civil Rights Act of |
| 1896 | Supreme Court validates the principle of "separate but equal" in Plessy v. Ferguson |
| 1905 | Niagara Movement founded to fight for school integration, voting rights, and assist African American political candidates, forerunner of the NAACP |
| 1906 | Greensburg, Indiana, race riot, the first of many in reaction to African American migration north |
| 1909 | National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) formed to fight for civil rights through legal action and education |
| 1915 | Refounding of the Ku Klux Klan |
| 1920 | 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote |
| 1924 | American Indians granted citizenship and the right to vote |
| 1942 | Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded to fight for civil rights using nonviolent, direct-action protests |
| 1948 | President Harry Truman ends segregation in the U.S. military |
| 1954 | In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court overturns the principle of "separate but equal" |
| 1955 | Rosa Parks begins the Montgomery Bus Boycott |
| 1957 | President Dwight Eisenhower sends U.S. Army troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the desegregation of schools |
| 1957 | Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded to coordinate localized southern efforts to fight for civil rights |
| 1960 | Sit-in at the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, February 1 |
| 1960 | Hundreds of university students stage a sit-in at downtown stores in Nashville, Tennessee, to protest segregated lunch counters |
| 1960 | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) founded to coordinate student-led efforts to end segregation |
| 1960 | Civil Rights Act reaffirms voting rights for all Americans |
| 1961 | Integrated groups of protesters join Freedom Rides on buses across the South to protest segregation |
| 1963 | Hundreds of thousands of Americans take part in the March on Washington to call for racial equality |
| 1964 | 24th Amendment outlaws poll taxes for national elections |
| 1964 | Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination in public accommodations and by employers |
| 1964 | Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAU) formed to promote closer ties between African Americans and Africa |
| 1965 | Voting Rights Act nullifies local laws and practices that prevent minorities from voting |
| 1965 | Malcolm X assassinated |
| 1968 | Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated |
| 1968 | Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination in the sale or rental of housing |
| 1970 | Voting Rights Act of 1965 renewed |