Money remains an obstacle, but the effort to open the museum in the old downtown Woolworth's department store is gaining momentum.

Last summer, Sit-In Movement Inc. -- the nonprofit planning the museum, joined forces with N.C. A&T -- where the four college students attended school, to promote and raise money for the project. The impact has been significant. Donations and pledges totaled $695,000 in 2001, compared to $98,000 in 2000.

Supporters of the effort must raise an estimated $15 million for the project.

In the coming months, museum officials hope to raise money and awareness of the project through a commemorative brick-selling campaign, a promotion with nationally known artists contributing a portion of the sales of their works and the release of a documentary producers hope will run on PBS.

"It's an exciting time," said Greensboro City Councilwoman Claudette Burroughs-White, who was a junior at Woman's College -- now UNCG -- when she joined the historic protest on its second day. She kept coming back until Woolworth's gave in.

Burroughs-White says she's especially thrilled that the museum is advertising for a curator.

"That person could begin collecting papers and information -- and the exciting thing is that three of the four of (the students at the counter that day) are still alive."

The central focus of the proposed three-story museum would be the old lunch counter where the four A&T freshmen were denied service because of their race.

Other ideas include a hologram exhibit for people to tell their personal stories of what they saw unfold that day.

"It's a way to really get the community involved and a way to tell those stories that haven't been told in the news," Davis said.

A civil rights hall of fame could feature robotic characters -- from Martin Luther King and Gandhi to Cesar Chavez and Harriet Tubman -- each telling his or her own story before a spotlight moves to the next in line.

"The concept of the museum transcends any one person, and that's the way it should be," said Franklin McCain, who expected to be arrested the day he sat down at the counter with Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan) and the late David Richmond.

The sit-in movement, which quickly spread to other cities, helped change racist practices across the South. An 8-foot section of the counter and four stools have been on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington since 1995.

Today, a small portion of the building has been renovated to accommodate Davis, a part-time secretary, and the volunteers and college interns who have been recruited to help stuff envelopes and solicit contributions in the coming weeks.

"This can be a museum that attracts hundreds of thousands of people. This will be a place that Greensboro will be proud of," said David Hoard, the museum's chief executive officer.

In the current layout, a 350-seat auditorium with a revolving stage would rise from the basement level of the building to the first floor. The main floor also would house a bookstore, the lunch-counter exhibit and a restaurant featuring 1950s-era lunch counters, with meals at 2002 prices. Other exhibition space could allow for historical papers and changing exhibits. A library, computer lab and most administrative offices, including those of the curator and the director of education, would go on the upper floor.

Museum officials hope to have "F.W. Woolworth Co." carved into the facade of the building, along with "International Civil Rights Museum." The outside would be a combination of black granite, glazed tile and porcelain and concrete paneling.

Hoard has applied for numerous grants and requested donations from nonprofit agencies and private companies. One of the early responses, a $500,000 pledge from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation of Winston-Salem, is the museum's largest single contribution.

Museum officials are waiting word on U.S. Rep. Mel Watt's effort in Congress to connect the museum to the National Park Service, like the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta. Watt introduced a bill in May asking the U.S. Department of the Interior to study the feasibility of including the museum in the park system to get permanent federal help. Versions are pending in both the House and the Senate.

The museum board would have to approve any partnership. Depending on how such an arrangement was structured, the park service could exercise total control -- as it does the King center, or share its management -- as is the practice in some other places, Hoard said.

The museum could get good exposure from a Durham-based film production company with a sit-in documentary that the museum plans to make available on videotape in its gift shop. A portion of the documentary, tentatively titled "Lunch Counter Blues," will be unveiled at the annual Sit-In Movement Banquet on Friday.

Using interviews, archival footage and newspaper clippings, New Dialog Films wants to spotlight a moment in time that has been overlooked on the national stage, said co-producer Rebecca Cerese, who has worked on the project for two years.

In the award-winning "Eyes on the Prize" PBS documentary about the African American experience in this country, the Greensboro sit-ins got merely a mention, Cerese said. But even the Rev. Martin Luther King publicly said what happened in Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960, brought momentum during a lull in the civil rights movement, she said.

"We have to give those four young men their due," said Cerese.

Other upcoming projects include page-length advertisements running next month featuring 14 prints from well-known artists who have agreed to give 40 percent of the proceeds from sales of their work to the museum. Five magazines, including Ebony and American Legacy, have agreed to run the advertisement in February at no cost, giving the museum national exposure and the potential to collect tens of thousands of dollars.

Also at the banquet, museum officials will officially kick off a drive to sell commemorative bricks in the sidewalk that runs the length of the building. Cost of the bricks range from $100 to $100,000 and can be paid in installments as low as $8.84 a month so that everyone has a chance to participate, Hoard said.

Ann Dearsley-Jordan, one of three white Woman's College students who joined in the protest 42 years ago and became a target of the hostile crowd, said the entire community should feel compelled to make sure the museum gets built.

"It's a legacy we are all a part of," Dearsley-Jordan said.

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nmclaughlin@news-record.com