Of Songs, Peace, and Struggle: Birthplace of a Whirlwind program was held at the National Museum of American History on January 14, 1995. The program for the commemoration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Of Songs, Peace, and Struggle: Birthplace of a Whirlwind: The 1960 Greensboro Sit-Ins” took place at the National Museum of American History in the Warner Bros. Theater. The Program was organized by the Program in African American Culture and featured an address by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founder Diane Nash and a roundtable discussion with three of the four original sit-in demonstrators in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jibreel A-A. K-A. Khazan (Ezell A. Blair, Jr.), Franklin E. McCain, and Joseph L. McNeil were all students at North Carolina A&T State University in 1960 when they sat down at a lunch counter to protest segregation and spurred mass student-led sit-ins across the South. After the roundtable discussion there was a question and answer period and further discussion, followed by a song workshop featuring the Program in African American Culture’s Community Choir, led by Diane Nash. The program concluded with a tour of “Sitting for Justice: The Greensboro Sit-In of 1960”, which featured the Woolworth lunch counter that was the site of the demonstration, and other objects related to social change in America. Learn more about the Greensboro Lunch Counter here https://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/greensboro-lunch-counter
