[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 8 (Tuesday, February 1, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




GREENSBORO FOUR INSPIRED NONVIOLENT PROTESTS AGAINST RACIAL SEGREGATION 
                            ACROSS THE SOUTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) in rising tonight to remember an act 
of courage and conscience 45 years ago today that forever changed North 
Carolina, the South, and our Nation.
  On February 1, 1960, four African American students at North Carolina 
Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina A&T, walked 
into the F. W. Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro and sat down at 
the ``whites' only'' lunch counter. They were refused service, but they 
continued to sit at the lunch counter in nonviolent protest.
  The courageous nonviolent protests of the four A&T freshmen, Jibrel 
Khazan, then Ezell Blair, Jr.; David Richmond; Joseph McNeil; and 
Franklin McCain, the Greensboro Four, inspired sit-ins across North 
Carolina and the South to protest racial segregation in public 
accommodations and in every other area of life.

                              {time}  2000

  The sit-in movement became a critical part of the civil rights 
movements and led eventually to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964 and the integration of public accommodations in America.
  Today, I attended a celebration in Greensboro marking the 45th 
anniversary of the beginning of the sit-in movement. In July, the 
Woolworth's store in downtown Greensboro, hallowed ground to the civil 
rights movement, will open as an international civil rights museum.
  Mr. Speaker, we no longer have whites-only lunch counters. Ending 
segregation has made our Nation a more decent and just society, but 
there remains much work to be done to achieve racial justice. There 
remain disparities in almost every aspect of life. And the courage and 
conscience of the Greensboro Four remains an inspiration for all 
Americans to recognize injustice, to refuse to accept injustice, to act 
against injustice.

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