Franklin McCain died January 9, 2014. He was one of the four A & T students who shaped history by staging a “sit in” at Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro. Tributes published about Franklin McCain have included details about his part in the Civil Rights movement.
Looking for content for learning about the sit-in? Two notable children’s books deal with the sit-in: Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinckney and Freedom on the Menu by Carole Boston Weatherford.
The Greensboro Sit-In was not the first protest to take place in North Carolina’s restaurants or at NC’s lunch counters. Below, you’ll find links to stories about three, including the Greensboro Sit-In. The NC Department of Cultural Resources published the three 200-word blogs (and others in a series titled “This Day in North Carolina History”).
Posted April 30, 2013
Ambassador Highlights Segregation in Raleigh Restaurants
Posted June 23, 2013
Landmark Sit-Ins Before Woolworth’s
Posted February 1, 2013
Woolworth Protests Launch National Sit-In Movement
The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has made other resources on Black History available for educational use:
More about the Greensboro Sit-In can be found in newspapers published at the time and at the Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro: http://www.sitinmovement.org/history/greensboro-chronology.asp
The books, blogs, photos, news stories and timeline can serve as a “text set” on which to base reading and writing instruction about an historic event in North Carolina history, which the blog says, “launched the national sit-in movement.”
Compiled on January 24, 2014 by Sandra Cook