GREENSBORO, N.C.—
Although the Greensboro Four deserve much of the credit for igniting the sit-in movement, there were several other people who played significant roles in the events of Feb. 1, 1960. FOX8 spoke with longtime News & Record reporter Jim Schlosser about those people.*********
Jim Schlosser was in high school when the Greensboro Four sat down at the Elm St. Woolworth's lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.
"When you walk in, you had that smell of popcorn, and it was just a great old store," he said during a recent interview. "It was just one of the busiest stores in downtown Greensboro."
Schlosser spent 41 years as a reporter and columnist for the News & Record and also authored two books on Greensboro history. His extensive knowledge of the Greensboro Sit-In was evident during a recent sit-down interview with FOX8 Anchor Neill McNeill.
"The store was integrated except for that lunch counter. The blacks had a stand-up lunch counter (that was) separate," he said, calling that segregation the "gross hypocrisy" that riled four North Carolina A&T freshmen.
So on Feb. 1, 1960, the four left the A&T campus and started walking along East Market St. They passed under a railroad trestle that many believe separated the black and white communities of Greensboro. Three or four blocks later, they turned left onto Elm St.
But before they got to Elm St., they stopped a store on East Market and spoke to the owner.
"They came into his store, told him what they were going to do, and he was elated, because he had been urging this action for years," Schlosser said.
That man was Ralph Johns.
"And so Ralph told them, 'Go buy some toothpaste and a comb and some other stuff, because that gives you legitimacy. You're not in there just to cause trouble. You're in there as a customer,'" Schlosser said. "They were scared to death. They figured they would be in jail that night."
But even though Johns told the four he would bail them out of jail, they learned after meeting Woolworth's store manager Clarence "Curly" Harris that their fear was unfounded.
"Woolworth's nationally had a policy that no one would be arrested in one of their stores. Not even for shoplifting," Schlosser said.
"Curly had even gone down to the police station to get the chief to say, 'Send somebody up there to get 'em out of there. Don't arrest them. Just get 'em out of there.' And he said, 'I don't know of any law I can do that with. I'll send somebody up there to make sure order's kept.' And he did that," Schlosser said.
Curly Harris was in a tough spot. He was scared of integration, believing his white customers wouldn't come around anymore.
So with Harris at an impasse, the four sat. A half hour or so later, they walked out.
Moments later, a Greensboro Record photographer named Jack Moebes snapped the now-famous picture of the Greensboro Four coming out of the Woolworth's.
"He got word that they were going to let the four out on the Sycamore St. side -- now February One Pl., and so he got there and got the only picture of them coming out of the store the first day," said Schlosser.
In fact, it turned out to be the only image of the Greensboro Four that day. The next day, Moebes took a picture of two of the original four sitting at the lunch counter.
Although Johns, Harris and Moebes played a role in the sit-in movement, Schlosser says no one influenced the outcome quite like the Greensboro Four themselves.
"There are people who could have gotten mad, saying, 'Wait a minute, I'm an American and I deserve this,' and screaming and hollering," he said. "They kept their cool and went about it in a way that, if you were a white person, you couldn't say, 'Well, they're down there causing a ruckus.'"
