The danger of young African American students practicing their civic duties and rights was at an all-time high during this pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964 time. Tensions of racial inequality and segregation were running rampant and in response to the Civil Rights activists was violence and hatred.

February 1, 1960:

Before this date, nonviolent sit-ins for racial equality were practiced sporadically. But on this day, students practiced a sit-in that would start a movement soon to spread through the Carolinas and further into the South.

The Greensboro Four, four college students, walked into a Woolworth and ordered some coffee at the lunch counter but were refused service at the “whites only” counter. To further their protest, they stayed until the Woolworth’s closed and this only drew more young African American students back the next day to join the four.

February 9, 1960:

Over 200 Johnson C. Smith students marched to downtown Charlotte and filled up the segregated lunch counters in protest to racial injustice. Charlotte was a city full of young activists willing to join together to fight a fight of social inequality. Led by Charles J. Jones, student and Civil Rights activist, these students closed down multiple five and dime stores without practicing any type of violence.

February 12, 1960:

As news traveled from Greensboro down through North Carolina to Charlotte, students in Rock Hill jumped on board and began practicing sit-ins at the “whites only” lunch counters of Woolworth and McCrory’s on Main Street. Most of the coming from Friendship College, over 100 students picketed and sat-in on this day.

Fall 1960:

CORE leader, Thomas Gaither, comes to Rock Hill to join protestors and students at Friendship College. He had been trained at Claflin College in Sumter, SC earlier in 1960 on how to perform a sit-in while remaining nonviolent, even when people attacked them with kicks and punches.