THE PATRIOT's DIARY : Feb 1, 1960 ( The Greensboro Four)

Recently after a enlightening debate among my buddies and myself about what makes a "Patriot". I actually learned something . I learned a vast amount of my peers are sorely lacking in knowledge( accurate knowledge anyway!!) of our country's Patriots and their intriguing history. I don't just mean the standard starting line up of Washington ( both George and Booker T.), Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Douglas ( Fredrick not Stephen), The Roosevelts, and Dr. King just to name a few. I refer to the Patriots of every era and station of life through out the history of our GREAT country!! So in an effort to enlighten my fellow man (or at least to give my kids something to chew on) RWHMs is kicking off a sort of periodical post , an almanac if you will. Entitled , yep you guess it THE PATRIOT'S DIARY. Ready ? Cause here it goes................

It started on a cold February day in Greensboro N.C. . Four college students sat down at a busy lunch counter at the local Woolworth's and quietly requested to be served. They were flatly refused ! See, there was a problem. It was the segregated South. The lunch counter was a "whites only" venue . Oh yeah, the polite young men asking for service were black!! So, they sat quietly. Undeterred and unserved until the store closed. The next day they returned to the lunch counter to another refusal !! Again they sat in silent protest until closing time. They returned the following day answering the now familiar welcome with same powerful yet peaceful demonstration !!


The four college freshmen ( Franklin McCain, David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, & Ezell Blair Jr. ) knew the risk they faced. After all this was the "Whites Only" South, and any challenge to that long lauded command usually ended in one of three ways--Locked up, Beat up or Strung up!!! Harsh but that was the reality they faced !! Yet, these brave four chose a unique way to challenge segregation!!

 By the fourth day they still weren't be served and still weren't budging from their stools. People gathered to jeer or stare at the men. Then to those folks surprise crowds began to form in support of the quartet of quiet ,noble young activists !! As the support grew the word spread and soon more groups of young black students were commandeering benches and stools at "whites only" establishments all over the South!! The movement was so popular that in some areas as soon as the "sit -inners" were arrested another group of students would sit down and take their place!!



The sit downs also had other effects. By that summer Woolworth's had decided to integrate ALL their lunch counters throughout the South. Soon other service based industry followed suit and erased the color line from their businesses !! Helping lead ultimately to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned segregation in all public facilities......

 .....and what of those common everyday fellows that History remembers as "The Greensboro Four"? They became Patriots that cold February day . All because they chose to stand up to injustice by sitting down!!!