Greensboro Lunch Counter

On February 1, 1960, four African American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College began a nonviolent, direct-action protest. Ezell Blair, Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond sat at the “whites only” lunch counter at a Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and requested service. The staff refused and asked the men to leave, but the students remained for the rest of the day. On February 2, over twenty students joined the sit-in. During the following days and weeks, an interracial group of supporters—including college and high school students—sat-in and picketed the store. The Greensboro protests inspired thousands of others throughout the South to stage sit-ins against Jim Crow. By July, when Woolworth finally served diners regardless of their race, young activists were a factor in the growing civil rights movement.

Protests such as this led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which finally outlawed racial segregation in public accommodations. The closing of the Greensboro Woolworth's in 1993 presented museum curators with the opportunity to acquire this historic artifact. After extensive negotiations with Woolworth's executives and representatives of the local community, a section of the lunch counter was donated to the Smithsonian.

The lunch counter is an 8-foot section of the original lunch counter from Woolworth Department Store in Greensboro, North Carolina. There is a laminated black countertop with a stainless-steel trim along the front edge facing a line of four stools. A black, wooden, boxed footrest extends the whole length of the base of the counter.

Four seats are in front of the lunch counter. Two are salmon colored and the other two are greenish-blue. The seat arrangement alternates colors. The seats are made of vinyl. The backrest and the frame of the seats are chrome-plated metal. The backrests are made of a middle rail with two spindles attached to a top rail that curves to connect to the chair seat. The seats have a plywood bottom and are attached to an iron tube and metal base to allow them to swivel. Bright red crown molding sits atop the mirror.