February 1, 1960:

On Feb. 1, 1960, Ezell A. Blair Jr., Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond staged a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter, in Greensboro, N.C. The four African-American college students, later known as the Greensboro Four, attempted to order coffee at the “whites only” lunch counter but were refused service.

365 Black History: February 1st

They continued to return to the store and stage peaceful sit-ins to protest segregation, and soon they were joined by hundreds of other Black colleges students. The initial Greensboro protests eventually spurred sit-ins of stores with segregated lunch counters in other Southern cities. In reaction to public support of the sit-ins, the entire Woolworth’s chain finally moved to desegregate it in July 1960.

Also on this day in 1902 author, activist and poet Langston Hughes, who was one of the best-known talents during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, was born in Joplin, Mo.