Greensboro: where the sit-in movement began

In the heart of North Carolina, Greensboro was the site of the famous sit-in of 1960 that definitively ignited the civil rights movement across all of America.

The downtown, where the sit-in movement for civil rights began, is comfortably walkable.

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum, housed in the former Woolworth department store, preserves the lunch counter where the famous 1960 sit-in began.

A short walk away, the Greensboro Cultural Center comes alive with art galleries, theaters and concert halls in the heart of downtown.

Heading toward the campus, you visit Guilford College, among the oldest educational institutions in the south founded by abolition-minded Quakers in the nineteenth century before the Civil War.

In the evening, Elm Street district comes alive with restaurants and bars in restored historic buildings downtown.

On February 1, 1960, four African American university students sat down peacefully at the whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth in Greensboro, sparking a wave of peaceful sit-ins throughout the American South in the months that followed.

The museum, opened in 2010 in the original building of the department store, preserves the lunch counter to this day exactly as it was when the four courageous students sat there.