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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2010)
The February 24. 2010 Portland Observer Black History Month Page 9 Remembering Young People with Courage Students’ fearlessness brought change pivotal moment in his book, "The age o f 20 — John Lewis, Julian Shadows ofYouth: The Remarkable Bond, M arion B arry, S tokely Journey o f the Civil Rights Genera Carmichael, Diane Nash, Bob Moses tion," as he chronicles the roles o f a and Bob Zellner among them — saw band o f young people who gave the sit-in as a tool to spread the new direction and courage to the movement for social justice to the movement at a crucial time. grass-roots South. There would be The book is a shorthand history o f the civil rights era— from lynch ing victim Emmett Till and the Su preme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed (AP)~Evenafternearly50years, the names bear repeating: Franklin McCain, David Richmond, Ezell Blair and Joseph McNeil. They were freshmen at North Carolina A&T on Feb. 1,1960, when they took their seats at the w hites-only lunch c o u n te r at Woolworth's in down tow n G reen sb o ro . Four young blacks tired o f segregation laws, they were re fused se rv ice and asked to leave. But they remained until the counter closed, and when they w alked back to their dorm ex hilarated, they had set in motion an act ofcivil disobedience — the sit-in — that took the civil rights movement The Remarkable Journey of the by storm. CIVIL RIGHTS GENERATION Thenextday, 25 sit- in protesters showed up. Then 63 filled all ANDREW B. LEWIS but tw o seats at W o o lw o rth 's. The protest spilled over to the nearby school segregation, to the Mont Kress department store, and as word gomery, Ala., bus boycott, the rise spread across North Carolina and o f the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. across the South, so did the sit-in: and the sit-in phenomenon — as it By mid-April, more than 50,000 pro follows the lives o f several key fig testers — ordinary Americans, most ures who forged the Student Non o f them young — had attacked Jim violent Coordinating Committee. Crow at the counter. From m ostly different back Andrew B. Lewis, a historian at grounds but with a common cause, Wesleyan University, recounts this these activists who were around the others: Freedom Rides, Freedom S u m m er in M ississip p i, the Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Ala., and voting rights marches. Lewis makes clear how much their fearlessness in youth mattered: "How this ragtag band with little money, no obvious power, pain fully little help from the federal gov ernment, and the entire white South out to get them, played a starring role in the demise o f legal segrega tion is one o f the great adventure stories o f American history." BANKffiWEST Í2L Remember Celebrate Persevere 1 j EH THE SHADOWS OF YOUTH Bank of the West is proud to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Arrested Professor Donates Handcuffs (AP) - Harvard pro break-in at his home fessor H enry Louis near Harvard Univer Gates Jr. has donated sity sparked a national the handcuffs used on debate over racial pro him during his arrest filing last year outside his The charge against hom e to the G ates was dropped, S m ith s o n ia n and the H arvard Institution's black his scholar later reconciled tory museum. with the police ser Gates said that he geant who arrested him donated the handcuffs Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside his Cambridge to the new National home. Museum o f African American His- Gates said he met with Sgt. James tory and Culture. Crowley several months ago at a Gates' arrest last July by police cafe, where the officer gave him the investigating a report o f a possible handcuffs. www.bankofthewest.com © 2009 Bank of the West. Member FDIC. .T.sn