Greensboro Lunch Counter, 1960
date: label: associated date
content: 1960-02-01
notes: label: Description
content: On February 1, 1960, four African American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College began a nonviolent, direct-action protest. Ezell Blair, Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond sat at the “whites only” lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and requested service. The staff refused and asked the men to leave, but the students remained for the rest of the day. On February 2, over twenty students joined the sit-in. During the following days and weeks, an interracial group of supporters—including college and high school students—sat-in and picketed the store. The Greensboro protests inspired thousands of others throughout the South to stage sit-ins against Jim Crow. By July, when Woolworth finally served diners regardless of their race, young activists were a factor in the growing civil rights movement.
label: Description
content: Protests such as this led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which finally outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations. The closing of the Greensboro Woolworth's in 1993 presented museum curators with the opportunity to acquire this historic artifact. After extensive negotiations with Woolworth's executives and representatives of the local community, a section of the lunch counter was donated to the Smithsonian.
place: label: associated place
content: United States: North Carolina, Greensboro
topic: label: used
content: Civil Rights Movement
label: used
content: African American
label: related event
content: Greensboro Sit-in
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, Civil Rights Collection
label: See more items in
content: Government, Politics, and Reform
label: Exhibition
content: Greensboro Lunch Counter
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: COLL.LUNCHCTR.005006
label: accession number
content: 1994.0156
objectType: label: Object Name
content: lunch counter
label: Object Name
content: lunch counter with stools
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, wood, plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 38 in x 97 in x 50 in; 96.52 cm x 246.38 cm x 127 cm