On February 1, 1960, four students sat down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth’s store at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. The men, later known as the Greensboro Four, ordered coffee. Following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the African American men at the “whites only” counter and the store’s manager asked them to leave. The four university freshmen stayed until the store closed.
The protest grew and on July 26th of that same year the entire Woolworth's chain was desegregated.
Read more at Twisted Sifter
Sit-ins and boycotts like this were very effective because it hit companies in the wallet.
ReplyDelete"Sales at the boycotted stores dropped by a third, leading the stores’ owners to abandon their segregation policies."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, right and wrong be damned, money talks. We could right a lot of the wrongs in the world by spending our money wisely.