Bluford Library Archives: Aggie Athletes In The Sit-In Movement
In nearly 120 years, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University athletes have formed strong lines of defense against major rivals in the Central Intercollegiate Athletics Association (CIAA), The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and soon the Big South Conference. The athletes have also famously defended their fellow Aggies on the fields of segregation and civil rights in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. This is the story of athletes in the 1960s Sit-In Movement.
On Feb. 1, 1960, Ezell Blair Jr (Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McCain entered the Woolworth department store on Elm Street in downtown Greensboro. After that first day, the A&T Four began recruiting other students for support. One of those students was Charles DeBose, the Student Council (now Student Government Association) president and a star athlete. He worked with the Four, other athletes, ROTC students, Air Force, the A&T Register and other student organizations to recruit students from Bennett College and James B. Dudley High School into the movement. These connections led to the Student Executive Committee For Justice.
The sit-in participants were verbally and physically abused by counter-protesters. The presence of the A&T football players greatly lessened that threat. In a 1980 interview, Khazan said the players were “like our bodyguards” and McNeil said that they represented “a non-violent show of strength.” At times, the football players carried small American flags, in protest of the Confederate flags carried by the young white protesters. At the first site of the big, tall and imposing Aggies in their blue and gold jackets, one heckler said, “Here comes the wrecking crew”!
From most accounts, members of the A&T football team began appearing at Woolworth after a few days. They began making their most memorable impression at the store when they formed a wall of protection for sit-in students to get in and out of the store. A famous example of this was when they escorted the three students from the Women’s College (the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), the first white participants of the sit-ins, out of Woolworth, against the mob and into a waiting taxi. Ann Dearsley-Vernon, one of the three women, said it was “one of the most moving moments of my life.” While defending white and black sit-down participants, they would recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Lewis Brandon, the “Fifth Freshman,” was with demonstrators at Kress department store Feb. 6, 1960. Many of the students had moved there because there was no more room in Woolworth. There was a lot of noise from jeers and shouts, then suddenly silence. People looked up and the A&T football players were at the top of the stairs. From some of the windows all that could be seen was a wall of blue and gold from their A&T and CIAA tournament jackets. Shortly afterward, the manager of the store declared they were closed for the day.
Many of the players took on abuses which included racial slurs, shoves and elbowing, being spat on, and cigarette burns. Among those players were the legendary Stanford brothers – Lorenzo ‘61, Pollard ‘61, and Carl ’63 – the first trio of siblings to play for a CIAA school at the same time.
In 2019, Pollard Stanford recalled being at Woolworth and standing strong when a man began burning a cigarette on his chest. Basketball Hall of Famer Al Attles ’60 said in a 2008 interview that many student organizers were afraid of using athletes in the movement because they may not have been able to handle the abuses in a non-confrontational way. Moments like the ones recalled by Pollard Stanford show the great courage and restraint of A&T’s athletes and that they did follow the non-violent approach.
A second sit-in movement would begin in Greensboro a few years later under new student leadership. This new sit-in leader and SGA president was also a football quarterback: the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. ’64. It has been said by many of his peers that Jackson’s leadership skills, coupled with his abilities on the football field, made him a strong and natural leader for the movement in Greensboro.
Since that time there has been a legacy of athleticism and civil rights at A&T. Chip Richmond, son of David Richmond, played football for Wake Forest University, and today Franklin “Mac” McCain III, the grandson of Dr. McCain, is an All-American defensive back.
The F.D. Bluford Archives and Special Collections have dozens of collection boxes and vertical files on the Sit-In Movement, the A&T Four, the February One monument and notable faculty and alumni participants. Much of this information is available online from our Sit-Ins Movement LibGuide. You also view many rare and historical images at the “A&T Four: A Closer Look” digital collection. For more information about A&T History or this story, please email us at libraryarchives@ncat.edu.
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