GREENSBORO, N.C. –
I feel convicted as I stand in front of the famous — and infamous — F.W. Woolworth Co. building, the place where four young black men from North Carolina A&T staged the first lunch counter sit-ins in 1960. It was the single most powerful moment, post-Montgomery Bus Boycott, in the Civil Rights Movement at the point. “Could I have done it?” I ask myself. Could I have sat still at that counter, knowing a haymaking punch could come come crashing against the side of my skull at any moment?
Could I have done it? Could I have withstood the degradation and humiliation? Could I have withstood some rabid racist unloading a thick wad of spit in the middle of my face without exploding on him like a volcano? Could I have tolerated some dastardly white man, knowing that I could not retaliate, pouring syrup and mustard all over my head and staining my good clothes? Could I have sat there and maintained my composure and controlled the thunderous rage building within me as vulgar insults were hurled at me with impugnity?
Could I have done it?
These questions pour out of me as I stand outside the defunct F.W. Woolworth building, the place that is treated almost like hallowed ground in this town. This is the place where the Civil Rights Movement received its desperately needed injection of youthful energy. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was five years old by the time the four black male college students decided to test history and age-old customs and sit down in February 1960. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement had stalled at that point, needing a new energy, a new direction, a new source of inspiration. Then came those four black men — Ezell A. Blair Jr., David L. Richmond, Joseph A. McNeil, and Franklin E. McCain — who put their careers, their lives and the fate of their entire race on the line by sitting down.
I’ve always been perplexed that their deeds were not given the same amount of notoriety as, say the two brothers who raised gloved fists in Mexico in 1968; or at least as much as James Meredith, who tried to integrate the University of Alabama.
Could I have done it? Thankfully, I’ll never have to find out since those four black men made their play. I ask if I and many brothers of our generation could have done something like that because nowadays, all you need to do is look in someone’s direction too long to initiate a brawl. And forget being touched. To be honest, when I feel I’m being handled, my temper shoots out of me like a discharged bullet, causing everyone around me to recoil. So … could I have done it? Could I have resisted the delicious urge to wrap my brown hands around that red neck after some haughty Caucasian cracked one too many eggs over my head? Just to enjoy the same rights that should have been given to me?
One side of me said I could have endured. The other side of me is closer to what Brother Malcolm lived by: “We tell our people to obey the law. We tell them to carry themselves in a respectable manner. But we also tell them that if someone puts their hands on you, take them off the planet.”
Could I have done it? Could I have fought the urge for self-preservation for something bigger than myself? I know I would have done something. But thanks to our Fab Four, I’ll never have to find out what I would have done.
–terry shropshire
