The Greensboro sit-in grew from 4 students to 1,400
On this day · 1 February 1960
Four A&T freshmen sat at a whites-only Woolworth's counter on 1 February 1960. Within days they filled all 65 seats — and the store finally gave in that July.
The Greensboro sit-in began on 1 February 1960, when four Black freshmen from North Carolina A&T — Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond — sat at the whites-only lunch counter of the F.W. Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave when denied service.
They had first bought toothpaste in the store’s desegregated section, which made their point: the store took their money at one counter but not at the other. They stayed until the store closed. Manager Clarence “Curly” Harris asked the police to step in, but officers said they could arrest the students only if he pressed trespassing charges, and he would not unless they turned violent. They never did.
| Day | Protesters at Woolworth’s |
|---|---|
| 1 February | 4 |
| 2 February | the four plus 25 or more |
| 3 February | 63, filling nearly all 65 seats |
| 4–5 February | about 300 (accounts differ on the day) |
| 6 February | an estimated 1,400 |
Greensboro was not the first sit-in, even in North Carolina, but it was the one that caught national attention: by 11 February protests had crossed the state line, and by April student sit-ins had spread to more than 70 cities across the South. They drew in white students too, from the Woman’s College of UNC and Guilford College, alongside students from Bennett College and Dudley High School. Counter-protesters spat on them, and one set a protester’s coat alight.
The boycott hit where it was meant to. Woolworth’s sales in Greensboro fell by half, and the store said it lost $200,000 in 1960. On 25 July 1960 the counter was integrated — and the first Black customers served were not the Greensboro Four but four of the store’s own Black employees, invited by managers to sit and eat. There was no press fanfare. Five years earlier, a teenager in Montgomery had shown the same refusal to move: Claudette Colvin kept her bus seat months before Rosa Parks. The old store now houses the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, where the original counter is on display.
Sources & references
3 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
