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.
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