The Greensboro sit-ins, North Carolina, 1960

I covered O. Henry in Greensboro some time back, but I forgot to add this one. On 1 February 1960 four African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at F. W. Woolworth's lunch counter on 132 South Elm Street. Following the store's segregation policy, they were asked to leave. They remained in the store and encouraged others to make a peaceful protest there over some days. By the fourth day 300 joined in the demonstration and shortly it spread to other stores and other cities. When the protesters started boycotting segregated stores, Woolworth's profits fell sharply, and on 26 July the chain dropped its segregation policy.

The effect of the demonstrations was far-reaching, and it is evident that they played a part in leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which illegalized racial segregation.

The International Civil Rights Center & Museum is now inside the former Woolworth store.

The sculpture Cup of Freedom, by Charles Jenkins, was installed outside the museum in January 2010. Below it is a quotation:

'I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold thes truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day... the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.'

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The plaque entitled 'Birth of the Civil Rights Movement' is also outside the museum, and is a representation of the 'Greensboro Four': Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. (who became Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond.

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) in Greensboro, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #13

At Bellemeade and Elm, downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, is an area set aside for a stone display in tribute to the short story writer O. Henry, or William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who moved with his parents to Greensboro when he was nine years old. To say the least, his short life was colorful, involving working in a drug store at an early age, moving to a farm in Texas, then to a bank, fleeing to Honduras after being charged with embezzlement, only to return and spend two years in prison for the offence, and then to incorporate his adventures into his stories, and to die poor In New York City.

The stone book represents two stories by O. Henry (who adopted his pseudonym after one of his prison guards, an Orrin Henry): 'The Gift of the Magi' and 'The Ransom of Red Chief'. The above illustration is of the former story, in which the wife sells her beautiful hair to buy her husband a Christmas present: a fob chain for his highly prized heirloom watch; but her husband has bought her an expensive comb for her long hair by selling his watch. O. Henry was a master of irony.

The righthand side of the sculpture shows the initial words of 'The Ransom of Red Chief', in which two bungling kidnappers make off with a young boy with the intention of earning $2000 ransom money. The scheme backfires because the boy is far too much of a handful for them, and the story ends with the pair selling him back to his father. The statue shows a young boy popping out of pages as if to illustrate the impossibility of tying him down.

O. Henry as an adult.

A representation of O. Henry's dog Lovely.

In the grounds of the Greensboro Historical Museum is a statue of the young O. Henry.

Surrounded by large numbers of common buckeye butterflies, the setting was quite idyllic.