As I traverse the rain and windswept streets of Greensboro’s historic downtown, the outward visages of the storefronts remain deceptively unchanged. I maintain my trajectory through the early February weather and find myself facing what had once been simply another store location for F.W. Woolworth Co.The building’s facade reflects the old five-and-dime store, but inside, carefully designed renovations present this site’s significance in overcoming institutionalized racial segregation.
It was 50 years ago when four students from nearby North Carolina A&T State University sat down at the Woolworth lunch counter, waiting for service that took six months to come.
“They weren’t sitting down for a piece of cherry pie or a Coca-Cola,” said Bamidele Demerson, the museum’s curator and program director. “They were sitting down for a healthy serving of social justice.”
The museum’s Feb. 1 opening was a long time coming. In addition to voter’s two-time denial for bonds to fund the museum, the opening was delayed by five years upon discovery of structural flaws in the building. The News & Record’s Taft Wireback reported that difficulties also entailed a dispute over “building a hotel nearby in a deal that includes Alston as a broker and federal tax credits.”
Ultimately, the museum partnered with the Smithsonian Institution to get the support necessary for its creation.
Joining the queue waiting for a tour, we descend down an escalator and are deposited into a dark room.
The display case in front of us is suddenly illuminated, revealing the words of the Declaration of Independence superimposed over the American flag.
They read: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“But,” our guide, museum executive director Amelia Parker, says in a slow, sad Southern drawl, “for some reason, ‘all men’ did not include those with dark skin.”
Theatrical lighting effects expose signs bearing messages of “Zoned White” and “Slave Auction: non-quality sold by the dozen.” The lighting imbues these painted planks of wood with a holographic feel, as though you could put your hand right through them – as seemingly “invisible” as the man in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” a 1953 novel highlighting issues of racial stereotyping.
Our guide then explains that the next room depicts acts of violence and adults must accompany children younger than 12.
Parker is right to forewarn. The walls portray several violent reminders of the struggle for civil rights. Among these is a 1919 photo from Omaha, Neb. of Will Brown tied to planks of wood, fueling a bonfire while spectators watch as if entertained. In another photo, taken in 1930 in Marion, Ind., two black men hang by the neck from a tree while a white man points at them, posing for the camera. A third photo shows a white freedom rider beaten bloody for assisting several black people in the process of casting votes.
Then there’s the picture from Jet Magazine of Emmett Till, his face mutilated beyond recognition. The 14-year-old black youth from Chicago reportedly made the mistake of whistling at a white woman while visiting his uncle in Mississippi. He was pulled from his bed, beaten, his eye gouged out, and then shot and dumped in the river. He was found three days later by fishermen.
But the brutality of the struggle is not the lone message of the museum. The “Hall of Shame,” as this room is named, intends to provide contextual understanding of the dire situation that so many people faced in fighting for change.
Some of these people are depicted in the following “Walk of Courage,” a section devoted to showcasing the work of such individuals as Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Mahatma Gandhi.
But the heart of the museum is the exhibit titled “The Lunchroom Experience,” which features the original Woolworth counter. The way that lunch counter facilities functioned was for individuals to stand behind someone already seated and wait until they’d finished their meal.
Because the four A&T students, and later, their compatriots from nearby colleges and high schools, were never served, their seats were never turned over to the next person, significantly impeding the economic progress of the Woolworth establishment. This was one of the contributing factors that caused Woolworth’s store to integrate on July 26, 1960.
Jada Drew, Guilford’s Africana community coordinator, accompanied students on a march from A&T to the museum on its opening day.
“It was very important to see the looks on the students’ faces who were going through the museum,” Drew said. “We were in the actual place where people came and refused to eat. When you see a big movement and you’re in that same place, I could look into the student’s faces and see that they understood what it meant to be in this place 50 years later.”
Another key element of the museum is an interactive maze called “Access denied: the battle for the equality of opportunity.” Every turn is a metaphor for the obstacles African Americans experienced during Jim Crow. The dead ends are ubiquitous and eventually become commonplace, leaving the traveler frustrated and weary.
Following this is a memorial to those jailed during the 1960s. Their slogan of “Jail, no bail” aimed to prevent the government from turning incarceration into a commodity.
Walking through the museum is like walking through a fluid essay, complete with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Its message culminates in the final room and puts the museum experience into perspective.
On the wall is what appears, from a distance, to be a pointillist depiction of Barack Obama. Upon closer inspection, it becomes thousands of small profile pictures of those people who sought change. Their individual efforts made possible this nation’s first black president.