STATESVILLE, N.C. — A civil rights marker honoring the 1960 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in was unveiled Thursday in Statesville.
The Statesville Historical Collection has a replica of the counter made famous in 1960 when four Black college students from Greensboro sat there to oppose segregation. They refused to leave after being denied service.
The marker is part of a statewide initiative to identify and physically mark sites critical to the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina.
“I remember as a child we had to come in the back door of the theater, go up the flights of stairways and then we had to sit in the back,” Statesville City Councilmember Doris Allison said.
The town’s inclusion recognizes the local impact of the sit-in movement and affirms the city’s place within North Carolina’s broader civil rights story.
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