Saving Stories Features Ezell Blair, Jr: Remembering the Greensboro Sit-Ins

This episode of Saving Stories reflects on a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement documented in a powerful oral history interview archived at the Nunn Center. This episode features an oral history interview with Ezell Blair Jr., one of the young college students who, in 1960, defiantly demanded service at a Woolworth’s Department Store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.  While this was not the first time a sit-in was conducted as a means of social protest, media coverage of this particular event sparked similar sit-ins around the country.  The Greensboro lunch counter sit-in created the model for local, nonviolent protest movements against discrimination with regard to public accommodations.

In this episode, Blair discusses the origins of the idea, their motivation behind the protest, as well as the aftermath of the sit-in.

Listen to the Episode

 

To hear the entire oral history interview, go to SPOKE, the Nunn Center’s online catalog of oral histories.