Four college freshmen’s sit-in at a Woolworth’s counter rapidly desegregated Southern dining areas.

Evidence

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and Ezell Blair, Jr., four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, begin a sit-in at a segregated whites-only counter at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro. The protest quickly spreads to dozens of other cities around the country. Over the summer, numerous establishments across the South, including the Greensboro Woolworth’s, desegregate their dining areas. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 985