Sunday with Lewis Brandon

This is PHH member Jesse-James checking in with y'all! Today, we met with and talked to Lewis Brandon, a leader in the Greensboro sit-in movement. We discussed racial reconciliation and economic justice. He is also a member of the BCC, which stands for Beloved Community Center. The community center is strongly rooted in the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. in an effort to fulfill MLK's vision of a "beloved community". The community center is located in West Greensboro.

We mainly discussed key civil rights events in Greensboro, specifically the sit-ins at F.W. Woolworth, and the involvement A&T College and Dudley High School had in this key moment in civil rights history. On February 1st, 1960; four black teenagers sat down at an all-white lunch counter at F.W. Woolworth's to protest segregation. This event sparked the beginning of a movement of non-violent protests around the country against racism in America.


The discussion was very powerful to me, I was definitely feeling some type of way when we discussed the Greensboro Massacre. In 1979, five protesters were killed by nine members of the KKK and American Nazi Party at a parade in an effort to organize black people in Greensboro to fight segregation. What angered me the most was how easily the entire situation could've been prevented and yet it still happened anyways. There were no police at the scene, and they only responded after the shooters left. All nine shooters were acquitted of their charges, and on top of that supposedly the Greensboro police knew about the shootings and did nothing to stop them. I've truly lost faith in a system that's designed to protect us but only seeks opportunities to oppress the victims of social injustice.

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