History & Hope: Former Woolworth busboy recounts memory of A&T Four sit-in at Greensboro restaurant
Sixty-one years ago this month, four North Carolina A&T first-year students walked through downtown Greensboro and “sat-in” at the Woolworth's whites–only lunch counter and asked to be served.
The students refused to leave even after they were denied service — and stayed until the store closed.
Behind the counter, 23-year-old Charles Bess was working at the restaurant as a busboy during the sit-ins.
Bess is now 83 years old but still reflects on what happened in Woolworth's when he was a young man, and what he believes still needs to happen today.
"Every time when a waitress would tell them we don't serve colored people here, they ignored it and kept on sitting and asking for coffee," Bess recalled. "I never heard them asking for nothing else but coffee. Everyone was looking at each other wondering what was happening. I was standing close by and I wondered 'what was going on?'"
Bess was proud of what unfolded that day.
Across the nation, there is another new generation of young people coming forward, displaying courage in the continued fight for equality.
Thousands gathered in streets across Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and all over the United States, this summer as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"The Black man has moved forward, but in some areas still haven't got there," Bess said. "I would tell them that we can't accomplish nothing by being violent, but we can accomplish by praying together and doing what's right."
Bess still lives in Greensboro and said he goes to the International Civil Rights Museum regularly to talk with visitors about the sit-in movement.
"I'm glad to be alive to the story of the sit-in movement," he said. "I just praise the Lord that I'm here to tell the story."