sit in protests along with archival footage. that begins right now. ♪ >> and we feel also that one of the great pillars of american democracy is that we have the right to protest for our rights. we will do it in an orderly fashion. this is a nonviolent protest. we are depending on moral and spiritual forces using the method of passive resistance. >> from the bus boycott in montgomery, alabama until february 1, 1960, virtually nothing happened in the arena of civil rights. i mean, it was dead, absolutely dead. even martin luther king said that. in 1960, things did change dramatically in greensboro. it is the origin of all of those events that occur subsequent to february 1, 1960, and i happened to be there. mcneil happened to be there, and so did richmond and blair. >> when you hear a railroad, the train is coming from far away and it is coming closer and you become increasingly aware of the track that the train is rolling on. and that track is what divides white from black. that is what separates the white ghetto from the black ghetto. it is the track that heads somewhere but you do not know exactly where, and it is not really for the good of society. and the four sit-ins walked right across that track in the wrong direction. they crossed the track. they went to the other side. ♪ >> i think that greensboro liked to think of itself as being polite, moderate, open to different points of view. >> greensboro is a town that does not like a lot of controversy. life was great on my side of town. >> greensboro was somewhat typical. greensboro was like every other city in the south. ♪ >> we were more focused on a day-to-day and kind of a carefree atmosphere, where life was pretty straightforward. ♪ >> in greensboro, north carolina, ezell blair, jr. was born on the eve of the second world war. >> before i was two months old, my father was on his way to fort dix in new jersey to fight the war. he was an army engineer. before my mother met my father, she came from a tradition of very spiritual people and blues people. >> jibreel at that time was small, but jibreel would always do things differently. he really embraced people very easily. they loved him, and anything he would do was right. >> after the end of world war ii, jibreel's father returned home. >> my mother said he changed. i saw a picture of my father and i and my sister when i was about a year and a half. everybody was smiles, what have you, and everybody looked peaceful. but the guy i saw when i was four or five years old back in 1945 was a different guy. he was big, he was huge, but i was kind of, like, trembling, you know? here comes a giant and he's come back to return and it had only been mom, my sister jean, and my great great grandmother. >> ezell, sr., the father, was also unnerved by the boy that had grown up in his absence. >> my father wanted him to be an architect or some kind of engineer. >> when he was a kid, he had this little jerry mahoney doll, and he decided that he would become a ventriloquist. well, gee, nobody in the community was thinking about being a ventriloquist. >> often in the family, there were challenges from dad about, boy, don't you want to go out and get a real job. >> and grown men don't play with dolls. >> and you are playing with this doll. >> my father was progressive. he had a determination that he was going to do something in his life to make life better for himself and his family and his neighbors. and then he began to talk about the naacp, the national association for the advancement of colored people, and he became one of the members in greensboro. >> our family dinnertime was a roundtable discussion. >> there was much dialogue. and he would come home from work there were things that happened to him at school and in the workplace, things that were unfair. and he talked about how he handled those things. >> throughout the 1950's, the blair children were being challenged to look beyond that comfortable veneer of their community. >> segregation had ills and some advantages. we had a community that was extremely bonded, and we had our own businesses and our own part of town. we had our own doctors. we had our own lawyers. so, in many ways, it was really hard to see yourself as this little child who has nothing, because you had a world that had been created for you. >> but what was lacking is interaction on a regular basis with people who were outside your color. >> the greensboro authorities did not see themselves in the same light as a birmingham or a bull connor. they thought of themselves as conducting their race relations in a way that was more civilized. >> what our parents told us was true. they told us these are the rules. you do not act out verbally or physically in the presence of other people, but if you are in the case of white people do not do anything to incite them to want to harm you or members of your family or your friends. they said because your mouth can either bring you to glory or it can bring you to hell. when i was about nine years old, the ku klux klan came to the community, and they put out a message. we are catching the niggers on the street at night. we are going to kill them, hang them, and burn a cross in front of their house. and i said, what is ku klux klan? and they said, they are people who wear white robes and sheets over their heads and they burn crosses on people's lawns and they hang you and kill people. oh, yeah? well, let me get in the house before sundown. what time is it? 3:00. don't worry, i have four or five hours to get myself ready. i'm not going on the street tonight. and my father said, i heard him say, nobody is coming to hurt my family. he said, don't you worry, son. and he spoke to my sister, jean, and my little sister, sheila, and he said, nobody is going to harm our family. >> jibreel enrolled at dudley high, an all black school in greensboro segregated school system. in these halls, he became good friends with a new student, franklin mccain, who had recently arrived from out of town. >> so i met mccain at dudley high school. we had some serious discussions. the guy had a great personality. he was, like, 6'4", handsome guy, ladies liked him. >> i met ezell at dudley high school, and ezell, i must say, has not changed very much. still a little guy who walks around and is friendly to everybody and oblivious to a whole lot of other stuff that most of us see and internalize. >> frank mccain had been raised in the more racially open city of washington, d.c., where the jim crow laws had been repealed earlier in the 1950's. what he encountered in greensboro infuriated him. >> it did not make me any less angry, that's for sure. in fact, i was probably a hell of a lot more angry than my parents and grandparents and all the other generations combined. i did not hate anybody, but i just thought that the system had betrayed me. >> in their junior chemistry class, ezell and frank befriended david richmond, the most popular student at dudley high school. >> when he and i were on the track team, david richmond in 1959 became the state high jump champion in north carolina of the colored schools. his record stood there for about eight or nine years. he was like superman to me. >> david richmond knew the true meaning of friendship. tough times and good times and the laughing times and the crying times. >> martin luther king came to greensboro in 1958, and spoke at bennett college. among those in the overflow crowd were jibreel and david richmond. >> my father, being a civic leader here, he took david and myself. dr. king was so profound in his message that it made me feel proud to be a black american. david never took a backseat any longer. stepping out and a challenging the system. >> by the late 1950's, other dissenting voices were finding national audience. the rapid spread of television brought images of oppression and conflict from around the world into the american living room. >> as kids, we were the first initiates of black-and-white television. i liked the news. i like history. they had on a documentary of mahatma k. gandhi, and i was glued to the tv set. i could not believe it. a little skinny, brown skin guy out of india, with a diaper wrapped around him, led a movement for independence through nonviolence, through the teachings of jesus christ. then i began to realize, since i was only about 106 pounds, hey, maybe i could do something like that, too. emmett till showed us what can happen if we broke the code. he made a negative remark to a caucasian lady. if we spoke out of turn, we, too, could die like emmett till. i remember seeing a picture of him when they pulled him out of the river. they let that be seen on television at that time, right? and then they showed him in his casket. i never will forget that. that was chilling, bone chilling, man. >> that sent me some messages. i do not know if you have ever felt suicidal at about 14 years of age, but i did. because i concluded rather quickly, if that is all that this life has to offer, then it ain't worth living. ♪ >> in the fall of 1959, ezell, frank, and david enrolled in the all-black college of north carolina a&t. >> my father said, you have to attend a&t college where i went. oh, dad. mom, do i really have to? i wanted to get away. i wanted to explore who ezell blair, jr. was. >> ezell was assigned a room with joe mcneil, a scholarship recipient who had spent his adolescence in new york city. >> by virtue of them living together, we did have the occasion to meet joe. the first thing that you determined is that joe is not your typical freshman male student. by and large, his conversation was not about people. it was not about things. more of ideals. >> i sensed my family was a very proud family, an arrogant family in a way. we used to say, we may be poor, but we are proud. which would say that the pants might be torn but they are clean. >> joe mcneil was cute when he was a freshman, and there was some new york background. any time you are a girl from the south and a guy comes to town and he is from new york city, even if he just work there in the summer and would come here, this was really great. >> joseph mcneil walked the campus with his head high. his major was engineering physics. this guy had a mind like einstein, a photographic memory. he was quoting shakespeare, plato, aristotle. >> with the addition of joe mcneil, the tightknit group now numbered four. they quickly became inseparable. >> well, these are four extraordinarily different people who come together in this wonderful chemistry that bonds them into a solid unit. >> i think we nurtured each other. that just was not available to a lot of other people, and i do not think it happens too often where four people think a lot alike about the same subjects. in fact, we got to the point where we could tell almost what each other was thinking. >> we began to share our classes together and dinner together, and then we would meet in the dormitories at night to have our discussions. >> it was during these dorm room bull sessions that the four friends first began to consider a public attack on the institution of segregation. >> first of all, we did not trust anybody over 18. we said, they have had a lifetime, two lifetimes to do something and what they have done is screwed it up. >> these are young guys who came of age at the time of the brown decision. they grew up with the lynching of emmett till. they are very much aware of what is going on in the way of racism. they know that things are supposed to change. they know things have not changed, and they now have to figure out what they're going to do about it. >> joe just started talking about revolutionary things. he said, we need to do something, man. he said, i'm sick and tired of going downtown to woolworth's and we cannot get served. >> the dorm sessions probably -- the vigor to become involved intensified, and you get to a point where you just have to get up and do things. >> the guy who was kind of a calming force, that was david richmond, who would sometimes in the heat of battle, one of his greatest strengths was to just ask a question. >> we talked about it from september 1, from freshman orientation week up until after the christmas holidays when we came back. >> after returning from a christmas break to visit his parents in new york, joe mcneil was denied service at the greyhound bus station. for joe, this was the breaking point. >> it was a degrading experience. three hours ago, i was a human being with all access and all capabilities to go to any restaurant and to drink from any water fountain, to do that. and now, three hours later, i am treated as if i am some type of pariah. >> joe comes back very distraught, and he says, all right, junior blair, we have to really do something, man. we have been talking. enough is enough. so frank and david came in on the scene. he began to talk with them. it went back and forth, the conversation for the next couple of weeks. >> it was very difficult. it was a painstaking ordeal, but finally, frank mccain said, let's do it. >> i think it was exhaustion probably more than anything else. it was a way of saying look, let's stop talking about it or let's finally do something about it. >> there was a dare. joe put the dare to frank, said, you know, are you chicken? he said, mccain, are you chicken? and then frank, in the moment of truth responded, he laid the gauntlet down. no, man, i ain't chicken. they looked at david richmond and said -- >> mccain would put his finger in your chest. >> yeah. he said, you, hopper grass, grasshopper, are you chicken? and david said, no, man, i ain't chicken. and they looked at me and said, ez, are you chicken? i said, come on, man. i said, i don't think i can go right now. i got too many things to do. he said, no, we're going to vote on it. it's the democratic way. so he said, right, everybody in favor, raise your hands. >> and you raised your hand. >> but there was another vote to be cast. for jibreel, parental approval was essential. >> on the night of the 31st, joe mcneil, frank mccain, david richmond, and my son came out to the house, and he said, we are going to do something tomorrow. this was on a sunday night. we are going to do something tomorrow that's going to shake up the nation. and i said, shake up the nation? what are you talking about? >> father said, yeah. you guys are going to take a serious step. do you guys realize what you are doing is going to affect not only your families, your friends, your community? are you ready for that? you guys better watch your mouths, your impression, your body language. because the way you act is how people perceive you. ♪ >> the next afternoon, the four friends gathered in front of the library on the a&t campus. >> i put on my sunday go to meeting clothes, my hat, my suit and tie. frank mccain did not have time to change, so he wore his air force blue uniform. joseph wore his battalion coat. -- italian coat. he was dressed to kill. and david, of course, had his cap on, his leather cap. he was dressed immaculately. >> i had some anxiety, and my anxiety was the unknown. i really did not know what was going to happen. i just assumed that we would be clubbed on the head or we would be thrown in jail. but the one thing that i was certain of is that we were not coming back. from the time we left the library until we reached downtown, we were somber, silent. i think we were all reflecting on what we were about to do, and trying to step ahead in time and project what is going to happen. >> it was like, this is so down. we were like the four musketeers. we are going to our destiny. >> when we walked into the store, we wanted to prove that we were customers. i bought a notebook, and made sure to get receipts. we mulled around in the store, just trying to get some fix on where we were and what we were about to do. >> i was trying to breathe slow and having some anxiety would not get too high on me. i felt my temperature increase. i could feel my collar, sweat coming off the side of my face. >> i did not have to always ask joe what he was thinking. we looked at each other, and both of us looked at the counter at the same time. we just started to walk towards the counter, without a single word. that's how it happened. and we took our seats. almost instantaneously after sitting down on a simple, dumb stool, i felt so relieved. i felt so clean. and i felt as though i had gained a little bit of my manhood by that simple act. and joe and i looked at each other without saying a word, i mean absolutely not a word. and it was about maybe some 40 seconds or a minute later, it seems like a lifetime, that the people behind the counter acknowledged that we were sitting. >> and the waitress approached us. what do you boys want? we said, we would like to be served, please. now, you boys know that we do not serve colored people here. why don't you all get up? and she pointed her finger to the lunch counter, the stand up lunch counter over there. >> of course, we said, we beg to disagree with you. you do serve us here, and we can prove it. we have receipts to prove that, and we bought all of these things here. and we just want to be served here. >> i'm trying to keep myself composed. meanwhile, i can feel my legs shaking. and out came this negro lady, this colored lady, and she says, what do you boys want? we would like to be served, please. she said, i'm going to say this to you, you all need to leave right now and go back to the campus because you are starting trouble. you know, it is people like you that make our race look bad, you got that? >> i used to wonder sometimes why i could not sit and eat meals. it just felt like, what is wrong with me i'm not good enough to sit at the counter and be served? i was good enough to work and prepare the food for others, but i couldn't sit there and have a meal. and that was kind of hard to take. >> the waitress left. she sent out this tall caucasian man we found out was a manager, mr. harris. he said, i do not know who sent you boys, but i pride myself on having a good store. he said, i do not want any trouble. we could see the manager was worried and he had a frown on his face. he does not know what to do. meanwhile, some of the caucasian people are getting up and leaving. ♪ >> shortly thereafter we noticed a policeman comes into the store and he is as red as your shirt when he sees us sitting at the counter. he took his nightstick out. and i said to myself, i think this is it. i could almost feel his hot breath. this guy was breathing fire. >> one of the officers started to take his billy club and hit it in his hand. that was unsettling to say the least. >> meanwhile tension is going full speed. teeth chattering and sweat is pouring off me like a river. i can imagine he was thinking i know what i want to do but i have no justification for doing it yet, because i have not been provoked. and once he paced two or three times i did not do anything i said to myself he does not know what to do. he is frustrated. >> mccain and i are sitting at the lunch counter. an elderly white lady comes and sits next to mccain. and she starts the conversation about being disappointed in us and mccain inquires, ma'am, why are you disappointed in us? and she relates that she is disappointed because it took us so long to do what it is that we are doing. >> to hear someone say that, whom you least expect, was quite rewarding. it was quite calming and reassuring. > when that was observed by othr folk in the store, there was not much noise anywhere. people stop talking. for 5 and 10 cent store, it was quiet like a church service. he goes back to the corner and leans against the wall. won't these guys leave here and get out of my life, that is the expression he had. a short time later it was announced the store was going to close early. >> nothing occurred. the police remained. they did not arrest us. they closed the store. we said we would be back. >> i felt relieved. a great weight had been taken off my shoulder. we witnessed a great transformation. david said, if i do not do anything in my life i think this is the peak of my life and i have done my greatest job. >> people take on a religion to get that feeling. that is what buddhists do all the time. here i am at 18 years of age having that feeling of total freedom, total acceptance. i'm asking myself, what do i do for an encore? it is all downhill from here. >> on the sidewalk outside woolworth's, a reporter caught up with the four sit-ins. he had been contacted by ralph johns, a local civil rights activist and friend of joe mcneil's. >> the reporter asked if we were coming back the next day and we said yes, we will come back the next day. so we went back to campus that evening. >> we need to get some help. the way to get help we concluded is to summon those people on our campus who had leadership positions. we went to the dudley building as we passed the word that is where the meeting will be. session, weted that spent 90 percent of the meeting trying to convince them this was not a hoax. most agreed they would help us and i can confirm it was in principle only, because the second day, they did not come. ♪ >> long before the students arrived, people gathered among them were upi and ap reporters and photographers and channel to. it seems from the presence of the media someone did an excellent job getting coverage for the second day. >> i remember cameras coming the second day. they were in shock and disbelief as well. i think they did not believe we were coming back. >> one of the most important things about what greensboro represents is there happens a point when television news is becoming a major institution. and for significant periods, what is going on in the south with black people becomes a staple of television news. black people recognize that this show is your show and the show is our show. we are the ones now creating news in the society. >> a protest movement. i saw coverage on television and it had taken over the news every channel. in the classes and in the hallways at my school everything was like mass pandemonium. >> by now everyone in and around greensboro had learned of the protest. people on both sides of the issue spent that evening preparing to join the fray. the next day in high point, north carolina, students were sitting in. [crowd sound] >> at our opening at 9:30 a.m., many people or settled at the front door and there was a mad scramble for seats as they were allowed to enter. the media coverage had its effect and i knew that hundreds would be involved and that woolworth's was in the middle lane like the lane about highway in a no-win situation. i knew then the eventual result was that woolworth's would serve but it would have to be when the fury subsided. woolworth's manager. >> on day three we started to get opposition. they wanted to take seats and get them to other white people who would come in and have lunch. >> tempers, people turning red in the face saying, niggers go home, segregation now, tomorrow and forever. >> i believe people had begun to stand up and show their true feelings once they got over the shock factor. here are people coming in, upsetting our world. >> it was chaotic. you have the black community on the one side and then you had all of the white youngsters from the outlying areas coming downtown, trying to intimidate them. it got tough. you had somebody taunting you and you are going to fight back so we were afraid we were going to have an all out black-white war in front of woolworth's. >> they were astonished at the fact we could be nonviolent and do that effectively and take all that crap headed our way. >> that was important for them to adopt the kind of gandhian nonresistance they had as they sat there and opened their books and studied and refused to respond to incitement or provocation. >> one of the major issues was that you will treat me as a human being with dignity. and i will sit here until you decide that you have to treat me in that way. > america was being taught how human beings are meant to deal with each other. >> it was also on the national news at that time. there were cameras coming to town. buses coming into greensboro. >> on the third day, winston-salem also decides to sit in too. the next day, raleigh and maybe portsmouth, virginia. [crowd murmurs] >> things were more tense. the chancellor of the women's college arranged a meeting of parties involved. it was clear that woolworth's could expect no cooperation from the college officials or students. food service was at a standstill. curly harris, the woolworth's manager. >> we had a president who did not come forward and say girls, you need to go. she said do what your conscience tells you to do. so several of us went down and just served as observers. we had the female students from greensboro college, and a couple of folks from bennett who showed extraordinary acts of courage, because of the abuse heaped on them for participating was extremely high. >> one made a threat. there's a nigger's girlfriend. let's get here. -- her. i had a lot of difficulty being quiet and doing what the students had been directed to do and that was to be peaceful and not react to threats and so forth. that was very hard for me. after a while i was told by friends to leave because i was quite angry. i was proud when the white students from that women's college came. when the three of us walked in these people occupying so no a&t students could get in turned around and saw us and thinking we would join them said do want to sit down? and the three of us took our seats at the counter and when the waitress came up and asked what we wanted we said, i think there is someone here ahead of us. and at that moment, the cat, so to speak, was out of the bag. so we sat there for hours, with things getting more and more hostile and more and more charged. but it seems a lot of students there were football players at a &t and they were big guys. the store closed at 5:30. and by 5:00 they had been started making moves to leave and made a circle around maryland and jean and myself and they walked us up the aisles, with this mob of people yelling and jeering and carrying on. they got us out to the sidewalk in one of the most moving moments of my entire life was the fact that we stood and they said the lord's prayer in the middle of this circle. and then somebody had called a taxicab. the guys opened it up and put the three of us in the back of a cabin and that is how we got back to campus. >> one of the bennett college men on the scene out woolworth's was betty davis who had recently become friends with frank mccain. >> i was probably quiet and he had come from washington, d.c., where women were different. i had gone to this private school, and thought i had to be a lady all the time and i was going to do that. >> i finally said to her, i like you and you are nice person, but i do not have time to do what guys who are my age do. you are either with me or you are on the other side. so she saw fit to come downtown and demonstrate. i look up and who do i see? there is betty. someone who never dreamed they would be downtown demonstrating. ♪ [loud crowd] >> more people gathered. people in the store were mostly observers, not customers. the greensboro store had been a leader in sales and profits in the southeast region. now in this tense atmosphere, the selling of merchandise was hardly possible. curly harris, woolworth's manager. >> the tension was high and there were 300 students downtown and this was a dangerous thing. no one knew how they were going to go and no one wanted to get sent home. >> my parents were shocked. they said you did what? we sent you to the school to get an education. but you are choosing to do what? and it is in the newspapers? and you might be going to jail? we went to jail, by the school the next step was that we were indoctrinated or inducted into the united states army. >> that anxiety was most acute for david richmond who had recently become a father. >> a lot of things were forced on david's life at an early age. here's a guy at 18 years of age who is involved with us. who has a son, a marriage, a job, and school. >> meanwhile the four sit-ins were becoming keenly aware of the enormity of the movement they had launched. a sense that 35 or 40 cities were involved. this caught like wildfire more than i or any of the other three had imagined. [crowd shouting] >> by 9:30 a.m., all seats were occupied and then 1000 people were in woolworth's filling up the aisles and watching to see what would take place. curly harris, woolworth's manager. >> i do remember huge numbers. it has been captured on film and you can see the tension in the air. it as not as though we were immune to things that caused people resorting to violence. i expected violence. >> by this time, the sit ins had spread to other department stores. >> i wished this would go away because our business was suffering. most people felt stay out of downtown unless you have urgent business. we had occupied spaces at the lunch counter. and there was a lot of heckling coming from the other side. amid all the shouting and noise, all of a sudden there was this quietness. when we turned to look, at the top of the stairs were the football team in their blue and gold jackets. as they descended the steps, things got very quiet and at that point i remember the manager getting on the lunch counter declaring this place was closed. >> meanwhile, at woolworth's, the crowd grew more hostile. >> this caucasian guy came up and saw the 6'3" football player and said, nigger, i'm going to kick your a. all of a sudden this football player gave an elbow, wham! things are getting tight and then there was the city council saying, you boys need to cool this down a bit, things are getting to dangerous out there and we are afraid there is going to be a race explosion. >> at 1:09 p.m., the information desk relayed an urgent request to the manager to answer the phone. the caller stated there was a bomb set to explode at 1:30 p.m., and hung up. i was asked, what are we going to do? to which i answered, let's close up. curly harris, woolworth's manager. around 1:00 that day the management said we are closing the store, there is a bomb threat, everyone leave and go home. >> i have seen these girls running up the step and some were crying. jones came and said come on, you have to come out of here and i said what is going on? and she said is a bomb threat. and i throw things down and i started and i went down the steps, and i looked upstairs, and mr. harris was up there looking out the window. and i thought to myself, if it is a bomb threat, why is he up there looking out the window? >> finally the stores were closed. and the students began to snake dance back to campus. shoop, it's all over. it's all over. it's all over. it's all over. ♪ >> saturday a moratorium was called. trying to get store officials and city officials an opportunity to work things out. that did not occur. we went back into the stores and we occupied the counters at the kress and woolworth's. we refused to leave the area and we were arrested for trespassing. the protest continued through the spring. when the college students left for summer recess, dudley high school students took their place. finally, on july 26, 1960, after nearly a half year of protest and negotiation, the store manager decided to integrate woolworth's lunch counter. >> i think he realized when the kids came back to school there would be hell to pay. and that is why think he managed to do it over the summer. >> i think what is remarkable and what makes greensboro distinctive is that this really took off in greensboro, and then the press comes in and you have tv cameras. and within two months you have 54 cities in nine states and everyone covering this. within six months you have a four-page segment of the new york times every day, doing nothing but talk about civil rights demonstrations. that leads to young people in these towns and cities asking themselves, what kind of role should they be playing? and what is obviously a great drama that is beginning to open up in the society. that simple act of sitting down to eat turned out to be the catalyst that ignited a decade of revolt. the students had discovered the power of direct action protest. their energy and example spread quickly in cities in nashville, atlanta and throughout the south. as one protester put it, that dimestore was the birthplace of a whirlwind. >> what february 1 did was provide a new language, the space, the opportunity for a generation to come alive. when that generation came alive, the movement was transformed, and everything else felt into place behind that new movement. ♪ >> that was the beginning of the end of downtown because the department stores left downtown and moved out to the suburbs. >> we have moved our communities to malls and strip malls. this downtown should be the center of attention, and the heart of greensboro. >> greensboro is divided. greensboro has a history of racism that is so institutionalized that sometimes it is difficult for us to see that. >> the deterioration of the downtown was a sign of the times that went along with building shopping centers. there was also a media affect that went on as a result of these marches and so forth. mayfair cafeteria went out of > business. by 1964, the greensboro four were facing life after college and one by one to begin leaving greensboro. david richmond stayed behind. >> david richmond was probably the gentlest of the four. he had a tendency to quietly weep inside. he was treated like dirt, immediately after the sit-ins here in greensboro. one employer after the next would very quickly find out he was one of those four troublemakers back in 1960. he had difficulty, in fact it was almost impossible to get a job. >> david richmond is now a soft-spoken janitor at a greensboro nursing home. >> the fact that they were involved and were so visible and were the leaders of this, really set them up to be targets for the community's disgust. kind of negative impact on your life? >> yes. >> what kind, how? >> i would prefer not to talk about it. but if you cannot stand heat, do not go near the fire. i am happy. i can live with the abuse. >> where is that abuse coming from? is it coming from the black community, or is it coming from the white community? >> we were labeled radicals, and i have not outlived that image yet. >> he was even threatened, his life was threatened. that had an impact on him. >> i remember being in a restaurant with him. he had tears rolling down his cheek in a conversation we were having. the waitress came up and said, excuse me, but is everything all right? and he looked at her and said, not really. everything is all right in here, thank you. but it is out there where everything is not all right. >> he had two marriages that had failed. and those took a toll on him, that he turned to alcohol. >> he began to show the wear and tear on his mental self and his physical self. then he started talking about he was nobody. i knew something was wrong with david. this is not the david richmond i knew. he started to say i'm nobody and everybody is somebody but i am nobody. and i said don't say that, david please. come with me to massachusetts. i can get you a job there. and he said i cannot go, my parents are sick and i have to stay with my parents. so that is the last time i really talked with him about leaving greensboro. >> on december 7, 1990, david richmond died in greensboro. david's memorial reads love leads to freedom. love knows no color, knows no inequality. it knows only equality. it knows no injustices, it knows only justice. >> a true believer is one who will just absolutely give up his life for the thing he believes in. you do not meet too many of those people but i think i know three of them. i have met three in this life and david is one of them. >> looking back now, if you had it to do over again, would you? >> definitely. i feel pretty good about it. at least i accomplished something, one thing, in my life that i am proud of. ♪ [crowd cheering] [applause] >> this is a proud moment for us. it is a proud moment for greensboro. it is a proud moment for america and the world. we are thankful that four a&t freshmen sat down years ago so we may stand today. >> in 2002, the three surviving sit-ins and the children of david richmond are reunited for the dedication of a monument on the a&t campus. the men, all accompanied by children and ran children, were nearing 60 years of age. frank mccain had retired to concentrate on volunteer work and joe mcneil had stepped down after achieving the rank of major general general in the air force reserves. >> when i think of sculptors and monuments, the ones that really have impacted me in the past are the ones like the vietnam memorial. when i go to that i have tears in my eyes because i know that it is more than just granite. it represents those who may have lost their lives and gone in harm's way. the four a&t freshmen were ordinary people and there were lots of ordinary people who made this thing work. february 1 in terms of origin and concept, it was strictly personal. there were some good things that came out of for bray first that 1 that meant something to the world at large. but it was strictly personal for frank, ezell blair and joseph mcneil and david. manhood and dignity. that's what we were trying to get. we did not go down to woolworth's to save the world. >> something happened that day and that is where i saw the courage of my friends. you can see it in all of them today. no matter where we go, for me, they are some of the greatest human beings on the face of the earth. because we believe in magic. and they performed magic. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern, we will shown interview with esther terry about her participation in the lunch cower -- lunch counter sit ins. here is a preview. came with a real deep feeling that that is wrong. that is wrong and we knew that. they wanted to correct it and to be educated and not do anything mean it was not going to much. so these girls would tell you that they worked very hard. they discussed everything and they can tell you that they -- that our president was involved as well. player was told and said she could not tell us not to come her girls. we were always called her girls. she could not tell her girls not to engage in that, but she did follyout that it would be thetart this sit in before christmas vacation because if you started it at thanksgiving and then everybody says, sorry, i have been politically active but i have to go home now and i will see you after vacation. she said -- she cautioned them to wait, and they did. they told all of us when they came back that they were already to start -- all ready to start. ony came back and february 1 the young men sat down. here is an important thing i asked. where were you on that day? she said, i was in will worth's -- woolworth's. why were you there? first you had to buy something. we knew how to do it because we had been trained. if you did not buy something, you could be tossed out of the store. she says, i was standing and was a plan.use it it did not -- it was a plan that here on theeated campus. the girls would think they did not get enough credit. that is what they would think. >> watch the full interview sunday here on american history tv. the c-span cities tour travels the country, exploring the american story. since 2011, we have been to 200 communities across the nation

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