FILE-Joseph McNeil answering questions about the famous Woolworth sit-in from 1960 during a conversation with young black students at his home in Hempstead, New York on January 18, 2023. (Photo by Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Joseph McNeil, one of four North Carolina college students who participated in a lunch counter sit-in protest in 1960, has died. He was 83.
The demonstration became the impetus for other nonviolent civil rights protests in the South.
Statements released by North Carolina A&T and McNeil’s family did not provide his cause of death or where he died. McNeil had been living in New York.
McNeil was a civil rights pioneer and an accomplished Air Force veteran. His son, Joseph McNeil Jr., issued a statement on his father’s passing. “Joseph A. McNeil’s legacy is a testament to the power of courage and conviction,” said Joseph McNeil Jr. “His impact on the civil rights movement and his service to the nation will never be forgotten.”
North Carolina A&T University, a historically Black college, released a statement writing, “Joseph McNeil and his fellow North Carolina A&T classmates inspired a nation with their courageous, peaceful protest, powerfully embodying the idea that young people could change the world. His leadership and the example of the A&T Four continue to inspire our students today,” said Chancellor James R. Martin II. “The North Carolina A&T family mourns his passage but celebrates his long and incredible life and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Who was Joseph McNeil?
The backstory:
Joseph A. McNeil grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina and was a ROTC member at North Carolina A&T University.
McNeil was one of four college students who staged a sit-in protest at F.W. Woolworth’s whites-only lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina on Feb. 1, 1960.
McNeil, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.), Franklin McCain, and David Richmond were refused service at the lunch counter.
WXII-TV reported that the four men remained at the counter until the store closed that day. In the ensuing weeks, hundreds of similar non-violent demonstrations took place nationwide, and Woolworth’s would be desegregated by July 1960.
According to the Associated Press, the Greensboro sit-in also led to the formation in Raleigh of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became a major part of the student direct-action civil rights movement. Moreover, protests between 1960 and 1965 helped pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
McNeil later went on to serve in the United States Air Force, serving in Vietnam and later earned the rank of major general. In 2001, McNeil retired as a two-star major general from the Air Force Reserves and also worked as an investment banker.
He is honored in Wilmington with a historical marker on a street named for him. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris sat at a section of the lunch counter that remains intact within the museum in 2021.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by WXII-TV in North Carolina, North Carolina A&T, and the Associated Press. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.
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