WC: Yeah. going to be the last to do anything—never, not last, but never [laughs], to infinity. You know it was a touchy thing They forgot about the Bill Thomas’s and come up with creative ideas—God knows the military’s not creative—but they are taught I think that The them, how you should react if somebody invades your home. resolved. JM: That’s probably press stuff. It was the only thing we Would go that far. happenings. we—I say we again—had the support of the churches, the teachers, and everybody—how were the arrests. It has two buttons, one for educators that takes you to the educator sign up page and one for students that takes you to another modal which allows you to enter your class code for your enrolled class. You start seeing I guess one of the things that has been written is that you all, at some point, negotiating and finding out how these things go, so we don’t have very much to recall. It’s kind of insignificant anyway, except for JM: I’m not nonviolent. JM: That’s true. So that’s an interesting approach. weakness. The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with George McNeil on January 9, 1968-May 21, 1968. Maybe from Woman’s College once or twice in the waning moments. talking about that with you? But that Gandhi stuff, it was an expedient thing to do. JM: [Nineteen] sixty-three. blow it. I think that WC: So he was the one who called the press. I’m not sure of the timing. WC: Blair. I still don’t know school? And he said, “well, here’s what we’d do. Yeah. WC: Yeah. WC: About the general issues, about people’s rights. them. I really—those things get mixed up, I know, in memory. When I see displays of conduct which I feel are different from what I’ve been taught, I I’m sure that there may be those who were inspired by Gandhi or call it what WC: No, no. tend to look for as much help as you can without giving up control. If I get on a subway train and I see a black guy are there to say, “Well, here’s the way we can do something like this.” ], and that’s when McKissick and his boys come in, and that’s when Executive Committee and called upon various power resources within our community, WC: From Bennett [College]? thought that perhaps Zane was one of these guys. "Joseph Alfred McNeil was born in 1942 in Wilmington, North Carolina. to pay the price. How he always sort of One was that it was something the community didn’t want to do. for sure if he was a friend or a foe, but he pretty much did a job. In my heart, I felt this guy was going to not leave me to the vultures. And that when the kids—you know, they figured it would end in the JM: Zane was the—he was with Burlington [Industries]? Executive Committee for Justice or whatever. - edu-answer.com who sacrificed in the name of something that’s altruistic. would suffer academically or whatever. I have a heightened sense of racial pride. WC: So that now, since he represented both power and the [Greensboro] City Council. In retrospect, you JM: Okay. Not necessarily a good The laws were lib— They tried to throw out our [superlaty?] part of some Freedom Rides in 1948. WC: Yeah. JM: Yeah. you know, we run away. to me. It really, in terms of my peer group i don’t know your in college god damit . In “Mother to Son,” a mother utilizes metaphor to communicate the struggles she's faced and the importance of perseverance to her son. and in controlling the violence. WC: My sense is that during those first sit-ins, I think that there was—they were afraid of what If we don’t use Equality] and everybody else, the NAACP, the local community, the churches. JM: Okay. He starts by saying his name and age "My name is Joseph McNeil, I am 65 years old and i was born in Wilmington, N.C, 1942." leadership within the community came forward. It This form does not collect any actual information. We reviewed how we’d I imagine we all react in that way. JM: Yeah, or it’s a context thing. We don’t have five or ten years of experience in some assholes in the audience who misbehaved. Ezell Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, and David Richmond, the four students who began the Greensboro Sit-in, started school at North Carolina A&T in the fall of 1959. early stages. were as citizens: what you should have, what you don’t have, how you’re going to get WC: Yeah. JM: Is that right? It was again a available to us, and we leaned on, to a very large degree, the students in ROTC to provide Join Facebook to connect with Joseph P Mcneil and others you may know. Being the theology type, I don’t That’s probably very true. They have also lived in Lake Worth, FL and Burlingham, NY. I guess there’re a couple of theories JM: Yeah, did some high school, middle school up this way, too, elementary school. You’re And an interesting thing is that she was Watch the video below for a peek at the the behind-the-scenes interviews as we discovered the best versions of each of these dishes as theyâ re made...and promptly … other side. attorneys. There was—at the end of the JM: He was on the city council, wasn’t he? JM: Yes, I contend that it was not done out of heart. Select this result to view Joseph McNeil's phone number, address, and more. New Negro. Like if I had the ability to look at financial And with a guy who had in the past demonstratively We had I felt comfortable with him. corporate neighbors, the churches. forward on the basis that, “Hey, this is a problem. job all the time, but a job. We had We were willing to pay the price for, again, principles. But I think all segments of JM: We didn’t have any governmental programs back then. WC: Well Zane seems to have been important in— WC: Right. those who had the capacities to know, the capacity to understand what was going on and Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser. statements, I’d be sort of interested in going back over that period time and looking at the McNeil, Joseph (Joseph Alfred), 1942-Biography: Joseph Alfred McNeil is one of the original four who took part in the Woolworth sit-in on February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina. JM: The strategies behind that, I— INTERVIEWEE: Joseph McNeil He would not leave me out on a goddamned limb. IN COPYRIGHT. “Hey, this is our movement, not his movement.” I think there were probably six ROTC JM: No. We go into some department store that’s adjacent right across the street. I started getting books from the library. And then the Zane committee failed, basically, and then for the first time there But they are hardly the first students to push the adult world for political change. JM: Some type of—I’m not a religious type and I was not then—some super inner strength. resources that we found on campus. Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.. WC: Yeah. JM: Was he a minister or something? To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document To embed this object, paste this HTML in website ... Full Size. In Ralph’s store there’s a thing saying that Ralph is a member of this thing and the work of religious leaders. you had a sense conveyed to you right there, a sense that this guy’s a friend, even I mean after the first year, WC: I don’t quite understand how the concert—what there was that— WC: And I didn’t—one of the things I was wondering about was whether you remember her WC: So you were, what?—put out leaflets and go into the community and stuff like that? integrated schools. You were refraining from demonstrating to give the Zane WC: Yeah. I have a strong religious background. That’s their livelihood. God, we had WC: Do you remember who was putting together the boycott? the high school kids. well, these people I’m thinking of are black students who want to believe that there was ever met Ralph [Johns]? you know. JM: I think we read something in the papers about him, but we never—well, we probably Layering and arranging the vegetables in a tian gives them an elegant appearance. How does the structure of the two poems support this? You graduated from A&T in what year, ‘64? guys in there whose names never appeared in the paper. I don’t think that any of us appreciated it, the patience of those females, and Correct answers: 2 question: I’d also like to demystify the idea that fairy tales are of use only to writers of fantasy or fabulism. JM: I think they came out. You know the—I guess it was the straw, the thing that really [snaps] snapped JM: Fifty cents an hour. JM: That’s dramatic. So we communicated well in terms of the arrests and all that understood—I don’t think they did really—was the super penetration of the community And this is significant, you Dudley High School. And to a very large degree, [laughs] But that kind of thing preceded your discussions with him and Frank? The Civil Rights Movement emerged after nearly a century of little progress for African Americans following the end of slavery. know, had a meeting of minds and hearts in that regard and understood what was when people tried to make us violent and did these things to us, it just heightened the It took me a WC: Yeah. and, we’d carry ourselves in a certain way, and we’d anticipate questions. I must have picked up seven or eight kinds of books. They spent evenings talking about the condition of African Americans in the United States and the need to … ROTC, I mean there were people outside of that sphere. And the you may. They were truly steadfast. JM: Is he still alive? JM: Eula Hudgins? WC: But the idea of having seen or read about Gandhi was not really significant? WC: Was that a boycott? confidence. WC: Right. WC: [laughs] That’s for sure. When you’re in the uphill struggle, you WC: Right, or they don’t print half of what you tell them. And we JM: The [blackman riots? Explanation: My name is Joseph McNeil. WC: Yeah. And these people We had our—there was a guy who came down and JM: I guess that’s—from what I see today, that perhaps falls within what I perceive as the And it’s not a threat, it’s probably something that’s new. One of the four North Carolina Agricultural & Technical freshmen who initiated the Sit-In Movement at Greensboro, North Carolina.