Greensboro Sit-in and Love and Reaching out of Ourselves
“Love is stronger than fear. No matter how many walls fear may build around us, warning us to be afraid of the person standing next to us, urging us to withdraw into deeper and deeper bunkers of conformity, claiming our only strength is in power, love will subvert it, to remind us that beneath the uniforms we all look the same, feel the same, cry and laugh the same. Love calls us to find a way to listen, learn and live. Every faith has its share of fanatics, but they are only as influential as we allow them to be. Love is our common ground. Love is the will of the many to overcome the fear of the few.”—Steven Charleston Facebook Page.
February 2020 seems so long ago. It was a time of naivety when most could not believe or imagine this pandemic was coming to our own country. How bewildering that we would think that we could keep an infection so contagious away from this land. Did we not realize that we are a global society?
I also remember seeing a Google image that month reminding us that sixty years ago, on February first, 1960, four African American students from a local college in Greensboro, North Carolina began a nonviolent sit-in at “whites only” Woolworths Department Store’s lunch counter. Soon students joined them from all the local colleges, including the one I was soon to attend. The sit-ins spread all over the country. Finally, in July, Woolworths allowed blacks to eat at their counter after a substantial financial loss developed to all the stores when the students boycotted them. The Woolworths Store in Greensboro is now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.
I write about this momentous civil rights movement, because it started just before I went to Women’s College in Greensboro, at the time considered one of the best public colleges for women. I vaguely remember reading about the sit-in in our local paper, but at the time, I was oblivious to the civil rights movement. My only concern was going to college. Is this going to keep me from going to college? During this time, I never took part in any movement for the rights of others. The four thousand women at my college only rioted when the drink machines were removed from the dorms on campus, but I did not even take part in that.
I am embarrassed to say that today I had to look up the sit-in on Wikipedia. I wonder this morning about how aware I am today of the suffering and loss of fundamental rights for others, even in my state, much less in the world. I think I am more aware, but this event in my life sixty years ago reminds me how easy it is to be so wrapped up in my world and not see or be aware or do something about the loss of rights and suffering of others who are different: African Americans, Native Americans, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants in our country and at our borders. I will keep this in my prayers today and pray for awareness to look outside of my life and reach out to the suffering of others in my city and country, and the world.
Even if we missed opportunities to serve the underserved before this pandemic, there is still time. Realize that the pandemic has been much harder on their lives than on ours.
Joanna. joannaseibert.com