Funeral services will be held in Hempstead on Monday for civil rights pioneer Joseph McNeil, who sat at a segregated lunch counter in defiance of the Jim Crow South as one of the "Greensboro Four” in 1960.

The longtime Hempstead resident died Sept. 4 at the age of 83.

A wake will be held at 2 p.m. at Union Baptist Church in Hempstead, followed by a 4 p.m. funeral service, according to a news release.

McNeil and three other Black freshmen at North Carolina A&T State University made their mark on the civil rights movement when they sat at a "whites only" Woolworth’s store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Feb. 1, 1960. They were denied service but refused to leave despite police pressure. After their original sit-in, McNeil and his fellow college students returned the day af

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