welcome, well come to this new moonth of free at last february, a moon of celebrating black history in addition to a season of peace… i’m a little late in posting this peace as it seems i’m not the only one in my sphere that can die and come back to life… yes, this laptop seemed to be dead as a doornail in this fifth week of being evacuated from home but it seems it was only in a coma and now has risen from the ashes just as we will…
now, such a holy synchronicity that black history month begins on the anniversary of the greensboro sit-in, a courageous moment that grew into a revolutionary movement…
in the late afternoon of Monday, February 1, 1960, four young black men entered the F. W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina where the friends could feel the invisible line of separation between the shopping area open to everyone and the dining area that barred blacks from taking a seat.. they knew, as all blacks in the South did, that stepping over that line might get them arrested, beaten or even killed but all four moved together in silence and sat down at the lunch counter to take a stand…
“It took a few moments for anyone to notice, but the change within the freshmen was immediate. The Greensboro Four, as they would come to be known, had not embarked on a deep study of Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha, his method of nonviolent action, but they experienced the first change it intended to create—a change that takes place within the people taking action. Just as the African American community of Montgomery, Alabama, following Rosa Parks’ arrest in 1955, discovered their power, the Greensboro Four experienced a transformative strength.”
the four students politely asked for service and were refused with the white waiter suggesting they go to the “stand-up counter” and take their order to go, which was the policy for black customers… by now there was no sound in the dining area, the voices of white patrons were hushed with just the clink of silverware audible as the four sat in silence as if they were in friends meeting or at a church service… eventually, a police officer entered the store and spoke with the manager and then walked behind the four students and took out his billy club pacing back and forth behind the activists, hitting his night stick against his hand but he didn’t speak or escalate… the activists began to understand the power they could find in nonviolence as they realized the officer didn’t know what to do, and soon left..
the last person to approach the Greensboro Four on that first day was an elderly white lady, who rose from her seat in the counter area and walked over toward them and sat down next to the four students and told them she was disappointed in them saying, “I’m disappointed it took you so long to do this.”
by simply taking a seat at the counter, asking to be served, and continuing to sit peacefully and quietly, the Greensboro Four paralyzed the store, its staff, its patrons and the police for hours that monday afternoon… when the flummoxed manager announced that the store would close early, the young men got up to leave feeling victorious and would be joined in the coming days by hundreds of students sitting down to take a courageous stand…