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