On February 1, 1960 four African-American students from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College walked into a Greensboro F.W. Woolworth and sat down at the white-only lunch counter, refusing to leave until they were served. In the coming days they were joined by other students in their protest, and on July 25, 1960 Woolworth's integrated the lunch counter. African Americans had endured unequal treatment and access to public accommodations since just after Reconstruction, and the sit-ins sparked the widespread student activism that was at the heart of the Civil Rights movement.
