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MARCH 1960
 |
Of the 2,000 citizen letters
the Advisory Committee received, 73% favored integrated lunch
counters. The hotly debated topic was constantly in the news.
The Greensboro Record reported that a letter signed by 68 white
citizens urged that "service
to all customers at the lunch counters in these stores be entirely on a 'first
come, first served' basis, just as it is in other areas of these establishments." Chairman
Zane and the Advisory Committee held numerous meetings with representatives from
Woolworth, Kress and other downtown businesses. All refused to integrate. On
March 31, a disappointed Zane met with student leaders to break the news.
By the end of March, the Sit-In Movement had spread to 55 cities in 13 states.
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| APRIL 1960 |
APRIL 1 - Students resumed sit-in activities
at Kress and Woolworth and began picketing on Elm and Sycamore
streets. That evening at a mass meeting of 1,200 students pledged
to continue the protest.
APRIL 2 - Both Woolworth and Kress stores officially closed their lunch counters.
APRIL 3 - Speaking at Bennett College, NAACP legal council Thurgood Marshall
urged the attendees not to compromise. The protest was strengthened when an economic
boycott of the two stores was organized by local leaders.
APRIL 16 - 17 - Easter weekend the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized
a meeting of sit-in students from all over the nation at Shaw University in Raleigh.
Leader Ella Baker encouraged students to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick") to organize the effort.
APRIL 21 - Forty-five students (including Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David
Richmond and 13 Bennett College students) were arrested for trespassing as they
sat at the Kress store lunch counter. All were released without bail.
|
| JUNE 1960 |
As A&T and Bennett College students left
the city for the summer, Dudley High School students took up the
charge. William Thomas led the students as the protests expanded
to Meyers and Walgreens.
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