Many stories exist about the events leading up to the Greensboro sit-in on February 1, 1960. Some are true; some are not. How do you get at the truth? In 1997 Jim Schlosser, a staff writer for the Greensboro News and Record, sorted fact from fiction by interviewing the three surviving members of the Greensboro Four. Excerpts from those interviews appear below.

Several groups and individuals have tried to take credit for the idea of a sit-in in Greensboro.

Ralph Johns

Legend: Ralph Johns, a white store owner, had long encouraged his African American customers—many of them A&T University students—to challenge racism. He suggested to the Greensboro Four, along with many other students over the years, that they stage a sit-in at Woolworth’s to protest segregation. Johns told them he’d coach them on what to do and say and provide any bail and legal fees that became necessary.

Jibreel Khazan: There are . . . those who believe this idea came from Ralph Johns. . . . But he never told me that as long as I knew him. I knew Ralph over ten years when he came to Greensboro in ’49 . . . but he never spoke to me about anything like that. . . .

Schlosser: You only talked to your parents and your three partners?

Khazan: They’re the only ones I ever talked to about the idea prior to February 1, 1960, because as far as I was concerned this was never going to materialize. I had too much work to do and I didn’t have time to waste getting my behind in academic trouble which I was in. . . .

Franklin McCain: Ralph Johns knew about it when we passed his store, but Ralph Johns didn’t know that is was going to be February 1, 1960. He had no idea. He had been encouraging people before we even came to Greensboro. Joseph McNeil and I stopped by there one day . . . and Ralph . . . talked about the condition of things in Greensboro . . . and there’s no question he gave us encouragement. I’d be among the first to admit that. He deserves that credit.

Schlosser: He’s talked about that he promised you bail money. Did he do that earlier, was that was a standing offer that you knew was there?

McCain: We didn’t know that, in fact Ralph said something about that later after the movement had started. . . .

Schlosser: But on that day you had no promises of help?

McCain: Oh we had no promises of help from anybody, absolutely no one.

Bennett College Students

Legend: Beginning in November 1959, students at Bennett College, a school for African American women in Greensboro, held meetings to plan sit-ins. Students from other local colleges, including Ezell Blair and one or two of the other Greensboro Four, attended some of the later meetings. Bennett’s president, Dr. Willa B. Player, discouraged the students from starting the sit-ins at that time as a protest would have been interrupted by the upcoming Christmas holiday (or, as other stories relate, Dr. Player was afraid her students would get hurt and asked male students from A&T University to begin the protest). The Greensboro Four then took the Bennett students’ plan without giving proper credit. Rev. John Hatchett, Bennett’s NAACP chapter adviser who was involved in the meetings, and the Bennett students didn’t protest this slight for many years to avoid interpersonal conflict, but now say it’s time for recognition.

McCain: Now I really don’t know how this thing got started about Bennett. . . . The honest truth is the Bennett girls had no idea what we were going to do and neither did Dr. Player. We never once had a conversation with them. . . . The only way that Bennett really got involved is about day five or six . . . we got some Bennett girls to come to participate with us. The only time we had some activity on Bennett’s campus is that we felt we really needed their help and it was much easier for us to go to their campus . . . so we decided to have strategy sessions in some of their buildings. . . . But the truth is, in my heart of hearts, the Bennett girls had no such plans ever; in fact they were just as surprised as you were.

Legend: McCain, a member of the Air Force ROTC, planned to wear his ROTC uniform to the first day of the sit-in, figuring it would be more difficult for Woolworth’s to deny service to someone serving his country. (Other stories say he wore the uniform to protest the Vietnam War.)

McCain: My last class was ROTC . . . that’s why I had my uniform on, I didn’t want to waste time to go to the dormitory to change clothes. Of course people ask me if I was protesting the war in Vietnam, that had nothing to do with it.

Schlosser: I guess you’ve also heard that maybe that was a strategy to wear that to show that you wore the uniform of the United States.

McCain: No it really wasn’t . . . it was just in the interest of time, that’s all. That’s enough! [laughing] There was no symbolism attached to it.