Fifty Years Ago on This Day in History...

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s officially began. On Feb. 1, 1960, four African-American college freshmen: Jibreel Khazan (then Ezell Blair Jr.), Franklin Eugene McCain, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and David Leinail Richmond-- refused to give up their seats in a whites-only diner in Greensboro, North Carolina. Today, President Barack Obama and a host of other luminaries are commemorating the Greensboro Four's bravery and the opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, appropriately located in Greensboro. (Log onto http://www.sitins.com/future.shtml for more details and additional links that provide information about preserving the historical legacy of the American Civil Rights Movement and its key figures and ways the current generation can stage happenings (and possibly even a re-energized sit-in movement!) that promote social justice.) I sincerely hope that present future would-be activists take a cue from these individuals' courage in the face of ridicule and violence. More importantly, we have to value and learn the lessons of our past in order to understand where we are now and point a compass toward a progressive future.