University to Celebrate 65th Anniversary of A&T Four’s Historic Sit-In

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Jan. 24, 2025) – The North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University community is preparing to commemorate the milestone 65^th anniversary of when four A&T freshmen reinvigorated the civil rights movement in 1960 with an audacious act: sitting in at the downtown Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter and patiently awaiting service Feb. 1.

The annual Sit-In Anniversary Breakfast and Wreath Laying is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 31, beginning at the North Carolina A&T Alumni-Foundation Event Center, 200 N. Benbow Road. It celebrates the A&T Four: retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph McNeil, who is expected to attend, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.) and the late Franklin McCain Sr. and the late David Richmond Jr.

Themed “Perseverance: The Power of an Ageless Evolution,” the event will kick off with breakfast at 7 a.m. and a program featuring retired U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield as guest speaker at 8 a.m.

The program will pay tribute to the unsung heroes whose contributions were instrumental in the success and legacy of the A&T Four’s historic act of resistance that ultimately changed public accommodations laws across the U.S. Among them are A&T classmates and faculty, as well as students and faculty from Bennett College, the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and Dudley High School, Greensboro residents who provided safe havens, supplied and resources to the peaceful protesters and local activists who laid the groundwork for civil rights advocacy long before the sit-in.

Additionally, the program will feature the presentation of the N.C. A&T Human Rights Medal, the university’s highest honor for contributions to civil rights, civil liberties and/or human rights, to an honoree whose name will be revealed at the event. Past honorees include the North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls and MacArthur Genius Grant winner the Rev. William J. Barber II, the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the late Julius Chambers, third director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. 

Following the breakfast and program, participants will walk to the February One monument and lay a wreath in memory of McCain and Richmond at 10 a.m. The N.C. A&T Fellowship Gospel Choir, which will perform “Life Every Voice” at the breakfast, will sing at the wreath ceremony as well.

More than 500 students will attend a social justice discussion, offered in partnership with Guilford County Schools, from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. in Harrison Auditorium.