Media/Headlines
Sit-in leaders’ spirit thrives at university
January 29, 2010
In 1960, when I was a 7-year-old growing up in Winston-Salem, my mother would require my brother or me to tag along with her on Saturday mornings riding the bus downtown to shop. Our job was to carry the bags.
I remember entering department stores such as S.H. Kress and having to use the restroom and water fountain for coloreds and being excluded from the lunch counter.
However, I was too young to connect what was occurring at the S.H. Kress Store in Winston-Salem with the Feb. 1, 1960, sit-ins initiated by four N.C. A&T students at the Woolworth counter in Greensboro less than 30 miles away.
I have heard remarkable stories of how students, faculty and staff from other institutions joined A&T students to focus the nation’s attention on Jim Crow laws.
Fifty years later, we celebrate with pride the momentous act of the A&T freshmen who wanted to make a difference in the world. On Feb. 1, 2010, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum will be dedicated at the very site of that original sit-in, the 1929 F.W. Woolworth building, to commemorate their actions.
Although much remains to be done, much has improved during the past 50 years. What an important time for our community to reaffirm its commitment to ensuring not only equal rights for all, but equal opportunity and access to a quality of life for all citizens.
I am grateful to be chancellor of A&T to foster the spirit ignited by our A&T Four. We challenge everyone to solidify and support intellectual, social and civic engagement in Greensboro and beyond. We must erase apathy and call for a renewed commitment to our nation’s beliefs.
We encourage our global communities to participate in the opening of the new International Civil Rights Center & Museum in downtown Greensboro, following in the footsteps of the A&T Four to create a better future for all mankind.
Harold L. Martin Sr. is chancellor of N.C. A&T.