Woolworth’s

As we celebrate another MLK Day, and prepare for a new administration that leaves us with a lot of questions and skepticism, I thought I’d share an older post. I always believed in his message of peaceful protest. I still do. And I look forward to a day when his dream is realized.

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On Martin Luther King day in 1993, I took my two children to eat lunch at the Woolworth’s counter in Charleston, South Carolina.

I thought it might be an education for them; to sit at the counter where 24 black high school students had staged a sit-in protest in 1960.

Charleston, SC 1960. Post & Courier

Theirs was a peaceful protest.

The students never intended to eat; they joined hands in prayer and sat for 6 hours before they were arrested by local police.

My children were 7 and 9 years old, just about the age I was in 1960.

As we sat and calmly ordered our patty melts and chicken nuggets, I tried to impress on them what it might be like to be refused service, mocked and sent out of the premises just because of something as arbitrary as skin color.

I think it had an impact. It led to a very impassioned discussion.

Their world in the 1990’s was so very different from the one of my childhood.

I grew up in an industrial city in Pennsylvania which was known to be a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Slaves who escaped the South settled in my home town. They found jobs, homes, education, freedom.

I grew up with the descendants of these same folks. I never saw color, nor did many of my peers.

I cried watching the news of the barbaric, racially motivated violence in the South of the 1960’s ; not understanding how segregation could exist in my lifetime.

Woolworth’s 1993

We left South Carolina 2 years later.

Woolworth’s left by the end of the 1990’s.

In our very small way, this was a memorable celebration of the legacy of Martin Luther King.

I hope my children never forget it.

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