Black History Month: The Sit-Ins at Woolworth’s
Civil Rights Era
In celebration of Black History month, we will be doing a series of posts that highlight the people, places, and events that have been of key importance in the Raleigh African American community.
Raleigh residents march along Fayetteville Street protesting the businesses that closed rather than integrate, 1960.
Raleigh was an active city during the Civil Rights movement due to the presence of two of the most prominent African American schools in the South, Shaw University and St. Augustine’s College. In 1960, great steps were taken towards desegregation when students began a peaceful protest by participating in sit-ins at local lunch counters. On Feb.1, some students from North Carolina A&T in Greensboro had gone to a Woolworth’s lunch counter and were refused service. The next day, they returned with more students, and sat silently at the counter to protest the denial of service. The news quickly spread around the South, and students all over began conducting sit-ins of their own. Shaw and St. Aug students organized protests at McLellan’s, Kress, and Hudson-Belk. It moved beyond the lunch counter sit-ins, and students began to protest other segregated organizations as well, such as the Ambassador Theatre and the Sir Walter Hotel. The Ambassador was one of the many places in Raleigh that maintained separate entrances for blacks and whites. The Sir Walter refused service to African Americans altogether.
After the students got the movement going, people of all ages and races joined in. Largely due to the student organized efforts, Raleigh businesses (for the most part) were integrated by 1964.
For more on the Civil Rights movement in Raleigh, visit the exhibit As We March On at the Raleigh City Museum.
In order to thwart the lunch counter sit-ins, businesses removed the stools so the students couldn’t sit. Shown is the Raleigh Woolworth’s, 1960.
More of the march down Fayetteville, 1960.
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sally
02/03 05:33 PM
Wow - that gives me chills just thinking about it.
(And I also wish there were still a Woolworth’s - and that it had a lunch counter.)
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Jim
02/03 11:52 PM
LJ-once again bringing it with the photos. The perspective on the Woolworth’s interior shot is fantastic. The black waitress (who wasn’t allowed to serve other black people who would sit at the same counter? The absurdity is incomprehensible) turns away from the row of stool points just right of the vanishing point which is slightly to the left, nearly placing her in just about the center of the picture. Are these uncredited or were they run in local papers?
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Robert Woodard
02/04 01:25 AM
The Wolworth’s picture was obviously taken very early in the story as they are advertizing Valentine’s gifts.
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Micah
02/04 03:34 AM
I’m not positive, but I think most NC, SC and VA Belk stores at the time were Belk-Leggett, not Hudson-Belk.
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Micah
02/04 03:19 PM
Coincidentally, I saw a relative of the late Karl Hudson this morning. He says that the downtown Raleigh Hudson store was a Hudson-Belk as long as he can remember, and he is in his 50’s or so. He said that he doesn’t think there were any Belk-Leggett’s in Raleigh, but there were in Durham and lots of cities north of Raleigh. Apparently Belk had complicated partnerships with (he says over 100!) other stores through its first 100 years and this resulted in lots of hyphenated names. All the hyphenation went away in the late 1990’s when Belk consolidated all their other partnership agreements. My friend said this morning that the only place that uses the Hudson-Belk name now are the Triangle stores.
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