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GREENSBORO, N.C. -
After the Greensboro Four sat at a segregated lunch counter on Feb. 1, several other students joined them to keep the movement alive on Feb. 2 and thereafter.
When the Greensboro Four got back to campus after their first sit-in, word started to spread on A&T's campus.
"He and I decided with some other students to go down and to join the four." said Lewis Brandon, a sit-in protester.
Lewis Brandon and his roommate, along with freshman Pat Patterson decided to walk to Woolworth's on February second.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say I had some apprehension. But we had talked about this thing so much and I think we had convinced ourselves that this was something we needed to do." Patterson said.
To the students' surprise, the sit-ins were relatively quiet.
"I sat there and wrote a letter to my mother telling her what I was doing." Brandon said.
What started with four people on the first day and a couple dozen the next became hundreds by the week's end. Students from almost every college in Greensboro, including Bennett College and three students from the Women's College, which is now UNC Greensboro, joined the sit-in movement. The president of the Women's College discouraged participation and wrote a letter to one participant's parents.
"I regret to inform you that your daughter, Eugenia, has engaged in behavior which we believe to be unwise. On several occasions she and two other Women's College students have been picked up on the campus by Negro male students of A&T College. They tell me their purpose has been meetings concerning the sit-down movements in variety stores, and I believe this to be true." the letter said, according to Eugenia Marks, a sit-in protester.
The sit-ins ended that week, but that was just the beginning of the demonstrations. Picket lines moved to other Greensboro restaurants and movie theaters. Three months later, college students asked for help at Dudley High School.
"But a group of about five students came down to Dudley, and we met in Ezell Blair's father's shop. He was a teacher at Dudley at the time, and we met in his shop and they asked if we would pick up the torch and carry it on during the summer." said Anthanette Thomas Clark, a civil rights protester.
Clark says she and her friends would later graduate from Dudley High School and continue protests as students at Bennett College. She and other students from A&T continued to protest from 1960 to 1963. Every protest was calculated and organized.
"We're meeting constantly, planning what those activities look like -- how we would operate once we got downtown." Brandon said.
"We used to meet weekly. I mean we met, some of us were almost professional demonstrators." Patterson said.
Sometimes they would picket in silence, sometimes they would sing. At some demonstrations they planned on getting arrested.
"Going to jail was a good feeling. It was a good feeling because we knew we were doing something to make a change, and to make a difference." Clark said.
"They took us out, put us in paddy-wagons-- police cars -- carried us to the jail, carried us upstairs, fingerprinted us, did the photo, did mugshots." Brandon said.
"Our intentions were to get so many people arrested that they wouldn't have any places to put us." Patterson said.
The fight for all of these young college students was for the same purpose.
"I never thought about doing this for me. I thought about doing it for my children and my grandchildren." said Betty-Jo Foster Wilson, a civil rights protester.
The protests were organized under a group called CORE, or the Congress of Racial Equality.
When the Greensboro Four got back to campus after their first sit-in, word started to spread on A&T's campus.
"He and I decided with some other students to go down and to join the four." said Lewis Brandon, a sit-in protester.
Lewis Brandon and his roommate, along with freshman Pat Patterson decided to walk to Woolworth's on February second.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say I had some apprehension. But we had talked about this thing so much and I think we had convinced ourselves that this was something we needed to do." Patterson said.
To the students' surprise, the sit-ins were relatively quiet.
"I sat there and wrote a letter to my mother telling her what I was doing." Brandon said.
What started with four people on the first day and a couple dozen the next became hundreds by the week's end. Students from almost every college in Greensboro, including Bennett College and three students from the Women's College, which is now UNC Greensboro, joined the sit-in movement. The president of the Women's College discouraged participation and wrote a letter to one participant's parents.
"I regret to inform you that your daughter, Eugenia, has engaged in behavior which we believe to be unwise. On several occasions she and two other Women's College students have been picked up on the campus by Negro male students of A&T College. They tell me their purpose has been meetings concerning the sit-down movements in variety stores, and I believe this to be true." the letter said, according to Eugenia Marks, a sit-in protester.
The sit-ins ended that week, but that was just the beginning of the demonstrations. Picket lines moved to other Greensboro restaurants and movie theaters. Three months later, college students asked for help at Dudley High School.
"But a group of about five students came down to Dudley, and we met in Ezell Blair's father's shop. He was a teacher at Dudley at the time, and we met in his shop and they asked if we would pick up the torch and carry it on during the summer." said Anthanette Thomas Clark, a civil rights protester.
Clark says she and her friends would later graduate from Dudley High School and continue protests as students at Bennett College. She and other students from A&T continued to protest from 1960 to 1963. Every protest was calculated and organized.
"We're meeting constantly, planning what those activities look like -- how we would operate once we got downtown." Brandon said.
"We used to meet weekly. I mean we met, some of us were almost professional demonstrators." Patterson said.
Sometimes they would picket in silence, sometimes they would sing. At some demonstrations they planned on getting arrested.
"Going to jail was a good feeling. It was a good feeling because we knew we were doing something to make a change, and to make a difference." Clark said.
"They took us out, put us in paddy-wagons-- police cars -- carried us to the jail, carried us upstairs, fingerprinted us, did the photo, did mugshots." Brandon said.
"Our intentions were to get so many people arrested that they wouldn't have any places to put us." Patterson said.
The fight for all of these young college students was for the same purpose.
"I never thought about doing this for me. I thought about doing it for my children and my grandchildren." said Betty-Jo Foster Wilson, a civil rights protester.
The protests were organized under a group called CORE, or the Congress of Racial Equality.
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