Reel South, Independent Lens
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On January 28, 2017, a mosque in South Texas erupted in flames. Now, this quiet community must reckon with the deep rifts that drove a man to hate.
February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four
One day at a Woolworth lunch counter, four young men changed the course of history.
- Series
- Independent Lens
- Premiere Date
- February 1, 2005
- Length
- 60 minutes
Producer
Rebecca Cerese
Rebecca Cerese graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a degree in communications and English. She has been employed at Video Dialog Inc. for more than six years, working on various videos for nonprofit organizations and foundations such as the Ford Foundation. Many of these videos document educational reform initiatives in… Show more
Producer
Steven Channing
Dr. Steven A. Channing brings a wide range of experiences as an historian, author, and regional Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. He has a Ph.D from the University of North Carolina. Beginning in the 1980s, he began to communicate true stories about the American past through documentary film and educational television. His initial productions include America’s 400th Anniversary,… Show more
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The Film
In one remarkable day, four college freshmen changed the course of American history. On February 1, 1960, Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil — later dubbed the Greensboro Four — began a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in a small city in North Carolina. The act of simply sitting down to order food in a restaurant that refused service to anyone but whites is now widely regarded as one of the pivotal moments in the American civil rights movement. Offering an unusually intimate portrait of four men, whose moral courage at ages 17 and 18 not only changed public accommodation laws in North Carolina, but also served as a blueprint for non-violent protests throughout the 1960s, February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four reveals how these idealistic college students became friends and inspired one another to stage the sit-in, and how the burden of history has impacted their lives ever since.
