For Such A Time as Then
It was Greensboro, and it was the 1960’s. On February 1st, the “Greensboro Four,” as they came to be known, staged their iconic sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. By the end of the month, over fourteen hundred A&T students had participated in this peaceful demonstration, and Kress’s had integrated its lunch counter. This may have been the most successful and peaceful demonstration in the history of this nation. The police left them alone, there was no violence, and the sit-in’s spread across the nation. The building which housed Woolworth’s is now a civil rights museum. All did not remain peaceful in Greensboro, however.
I grew up in Greensboro; I went to high school and college there. I witnessed the civil rights movement from the perspective of a woman coming of age in that historic time and place. In the fall of 1960, my Sophomore year in high school, I began working on Saturdays at Brownhills, a prestigious high-end women’s clothing store on North Elm Street. The civil rights movement was still very active in Greensboro, and the management of Brownhills hired a very attractive young female A&T student to work on the first floor on Saturdays along with me. The first floor was sportswear and catered to a younger clientele. I believe she was the first African American to work on the sales floor of a store in Greensboro. And as I said, she was very attractive. I was mesmerized by her and she was very nice to me. After work, we would walk to the bus stop together, she to go to A&T, me to go to my home on Walker Avenue. We thought nothing unusual about walking together; after all, we had worked together all day. About the 3rd time this happened, we were surrounded and taunted by a group of young white men, calling her the N name, me the N-lover name. She turned to me and said, “Kaye, we cannot walk together. It is dangerous for you as well as for me.” She did not return to work the next Saturday. Although I cannot recall her name, I will eternally remember her, her elegance and beauty, and her kindness and concern for me. I learned a valuable lesson that day about belonging to and caring for each other, no matter what our superficial differences are.
No, things did not remain peaceful in Greensboro. By the time a graduated from college, things had heated up. More militant elements took over. A curfew was imposed and I remember seeing fire against the night sky far across the city. When I see the pictures of people protesting for equal justice now, I think of those times, and wonder why we haven’t gotten any further on the road of justice than we have. And I wonder why we haven’t been able to learn from the role-modeling of the Greensboro Four and the police that left them alone to protest that segregated lunch counter. Maybe we could take a pause and learn from such a time as then.
