
{"id":2041,"date":"2008-03-06T08:55:43","date_gmt":"2008-03-06T16:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2008\/03\/06\/living-to-tell-the-tale\/"},"modified":"2008-03-06T08:55:43","modified_gmt":"2008-03-06T16:55:43","slug":"living-to-tell-the-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/03\/06\/living-to-tell-the-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Living to tell the tale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/franklin2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/franklin2.jpg\" alt=\"Franklin McCain signs autographs for students at Rashkis Elementary after his talk about his experience as one of the Greensboro Four. Photo by Kirk Ross.\" align=\"left\" height=\"118\" width=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Franklin McCain accomplished a great feat on Friday at Rashkis Elementary School \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he held the attention of 250 fourth- and fifth-graders for more than an hour.<\/p>\n<p>McCain, one of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Greensboro Four\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who participated in the 1960 Woolworth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lunch counter sit-in, recounted his experiences for Rashkis students, including his grandson, kindergartener Davis McCain.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond took seats at the Woolworth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s segregated lunch counter to ask for service on Feb. 1, 1960. They continued to sit at the counter every day, joined by more people each day, until finally, in July, they were served. Their actions inspired sit-ins across the country and are considered seminal moments in the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n<p>Rashkis students crowded around McCain in the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s media center for what resembled a grandfather telling stories to his grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tell you some things that are pretty hard to believe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCain began. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The times weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that good and fair. You know what fair is, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his talk, McCain quizzed students about different things he said or words he used. He told students about segregated schools, pools and restaurants, and how he got angry as he got older.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even go over to McDonald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and get a Happy Meal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCain told the students, who responded with gasps. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t swim, couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go to the pool.\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even go to the park.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was 12 years old, I was so angry, if you touched me with a pin, I would have popped.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>McCain went to North Carolina A&amp;T State University, where he met McNeil, Blair and Richmond. He told Rashkis students that the four young men would sit around every night talking about how unfair segregation was, and that finally they decided to do something about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We decided that we were going to go down to [Woolworth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s] and take a seat at that counter,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. Woolworth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a separate standing-only counter for blacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We decided that we were going to do two things. We were going to be orderly \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and we were going to be nonviolent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCain said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We fully anticipated some bad things happening to us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it did not matter if I came back dead, because the kind of life I had to live and the conditions that I had to put up with made me question if this life was worth living,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued.<br \/>\nMcCain and his three friends purchased some school supplies in the store, then took seats at the counter, where they asked for  service and were denied. He told students how a policeman paced behind them with a nightstick and how people threw things at them, but they continued to sit and ask for service.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was a little old white lady with blue hair, who must\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been about 200 years old, who sat about five feet down from me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he told the students. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you think about 1960 in the South and a 200-year-old white woman, and you are where you are not supposed to be, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to believe that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have good thoughts about you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, she finished that doughnut and that coffee, and she strolled toward us, and she put one hand on my shoulder and one hand on Joseph McNeil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She said in a very calm voice, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBoys, I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this 10 years ago.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>McCain told the students that he learned a very valuable lesson from that little old lady.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you ever stereotype or make your mind up about somebody in this life before you get to know them\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Today, that lesson still lives with me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>At the end of McCain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk, when he asked students if they had any questions for him, hands shot up around the room. The students asked if he was scared, whether he got hungry while waiting for service and if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever taken a drink from one of the whites-only water fountains.<\/p>\n<p>McCain told students that when he finally did receive service, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that was about the nastiest hot dog I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever had in my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>McCain was surrounded by children asking for his autograph after his talk was over.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was very interesting that one person sitting on a stool could do so much,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said fifth-grader Megan Serody.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned a little bit about black history, but it was cool to hear it from someone who was actually there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d added Jane Carsey, a fifth-grade student at Rashkis.<\/p>\n<p>McCain left the students with a final lesson: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the dream is big enough, the facts don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter. If your dream is big enough, you can do anything that you want to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan Dickson Staff Writer Franklin McCain accomplished a great feat on Friday at Rashkis Elementary School \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he held the attention of 250 fourth- and fifth-graders for more than an hour. McCain, one of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Greensboro Four\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who participated in the 1960 Woolworth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lunch counter sit-in, recounted his experiences for Rashkis students, including his&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}