Joseph McNeil, one of four college students who led sit-ins to integrate lunch counters in Greensboro, N.C., during the Civil Rights Movement, died Thursday morning at 83.
McNeil, born in Wilmington, N.C., was one of the last two surviving members of the Greensboro Four — all college students at N.C. A&T State University. Jibreel Khazan is now the lone survivor. David Richmond died in 1990, and Franklin McCain died in 2014.
McNeil was 17 years old on Feb. 1, 1960, when the Greensboro Four began a series of sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter inside a F.W. Woolworth’s store in Greensboro. The store’s white staff refused to take the students’ orders, and the teens remained in their seats until the store closed.
The students repeatedly returned to the store, each time with a larger crow