BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENT

On Saturday, February 22 at 3:00pm, Elegba Folklore Society will show the documentary February One in its cultural center, 101 E Broad St, in the downtown RVA Arts District. This program is free and open to the public. It accompanies the current exhibition, African Root, American Fruit: Paintings and Collages by Ronald Jackson, which opened on February 7 and will run through April 30. The exhibition and accompanying programs are a part of the Richmond visual arts collaboration Race, Place & Identity.

This story of the Greensboro Four chronicles the four A&T College freshmen (now North Carolina A&T State University) in their decision to integrate the lunch counter at the downtown F. W. Woolworth store on February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina. This act launched the sit-in movement which blazed like a fire through the parched, segregated south and was led by students. Students at Richmond’s Virginia Union University, for example, followed soon after on February 11, 1960 to sit-in at Thalhimer’s Department Store. These individual and collective acts changed the nation.

Greensboro’s Woolworth’s is now the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.