Mission Statement

Animating the iconic F.W. Woolworth's landmark, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum opened in 2010 as a comprehensive museum of the Civil Rights Movement and an innovative educational organization devoted to understanding and advancing civil and human rights in this country and the world. It commemorates the Feb. 1, 1960, sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro by four Black college students from North Carolina A&T State University — David Richmond, Frank McCain, Ezell Blair, and Joseph McNeil. Their non-violent direct action ignited the Sit-In Movement that renewed the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, challenging the Americans to make good on promises of personal equality and civic inclusion enunciated in the Constitution. The ICRCM commemorates the brave and visionary advocacy of full citizenship and social justice.