International Civil Rights Center: Explore History: Civil Rights Movement

In 1960, four students at North Carolina A&T University decided to protest segregation laws by staging a sit-in at the Woolworth store lunch counter. Their action sparked a nation-wide protest by students that spread from just Woolworth's to other public places, e.g., pools and libraries, and led to integration policies. This exhibit describes the sit-in movement, gives biographical profiles of the individuals involved on both sides of the issue, and provides a timeline of the civil rights movement from the Dred Scott Supreme Court case in 1857 up to the affirmative action policy instated at the University of Michigan Law School in 1992.