"The
"sixties" were born on Feb. 1, 1960 when four African American
college students staged the first sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in
Greensboro, N.C. Since then, the mythology of the '60s has dominated the
idea of youthful activism," NY Times, January 31, 2010, By Andrew B.
Lewis
"Of the
three big events of the early civil rights movement -- the 1954 Brown vs.
Board of Education decision, the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott and the
sit-ins -- the sit-ins have always been the least understood and, yet, the
most important for today's young activists," NY Times, January 31,
2010, By Andrew B. Lewis
"I
lived with my grandfather in the Warnersville section of Greensboro, N.C.
Most days, I walked from my grandfather's home to the campus. I walked by
that F.W. Woolworth many times wishing that I could stop in for something
to eat or a cool drink. But I could not, and unlike the "Greensboro
Four," I had neither the thought nor the courage to challenge its
practice of racial segregation by sitting in ....I am a native of
Greensboro. Each Feb. 1, I hope all Americans will join me and say, "Because
the Greensboro Four sat in, we are able to stand tall as
Americans."- USA TODAY,Gilbert H. Caldwell - Asbury Park, N.J.
"Unionists
celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King's memory, vision and the progress the
country has made since the Greensboro sit-ins, but they also engaged in
serious, intellectual, and, at times, heart-breaking discussions about the
work that still needs to be done to achieve true social and economic
justice for all people," Greensboro Four Sit-in for justice event
review
"In
1960, four young students from North Carolina A&T walked into a
Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at a lunch counter
and reignited a movement for social justice that would forever change
America… To the four young men who courageously sat down to order a cup of
coffee 50 years ago, and to all who they inspired, I simply say, thank
you," President Barak Obama's Essay on the Greensboro Sit-ins
