There’s a reason a street in downtown Greensboro has the interesting name “February One Place” – and it’s because that was the date of the start of the Sit-in Movement at the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter that  ran from February 1, 1960, until July 5 of that year and sparked a widespread civil rights movement.

The Guilford County commissioners’ first meeting of February 2024 fell on that date, and it was therefore the perfect time for the Board of Commissioners to pass a resolution doing two things – commemorating the 64th anniversary of the Greensboro Sit-in Movement and honoring  the life-long contributions of civil rights advocate Benjamin Franklin Chavis, Jr.

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston opened the county commissioners meeting on February 1 and oversaw the part of the meeting honoring Chavis. However, Alston soon afterward turned the meeting over to Vice Chair of the Board Carlvena Foster so that he and Chavis could make it over to the festivities at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which was built in the old Woolworth’s building where the 1960 Greensboro Sit-in took place.

At the meeting, Alston read a moving resolution regarding Chavis and the Sit-in Movement as well as commemorating the museum.

Chavis returned the favor to Alston once Chavis took the podium at the February meeting.

“Mr. Chairman I want to thank you – for your leadership,” he said from the podium in the county commissioners second floor meeting room in the Old County Court House in Downtown Greensboro. “It’s not just about one of us – it’s about all of us.  The truth of the matter is that there is just one race – the human race.  We are all part of one human family.”

Chavis added, “To me, the museum that you started 14 years ago is not just a museum for the county. It’s not just for the United States of America – it’s a museum for the whole world.

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