Key moment: Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson and Mark Martin, all of the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, were refused service after they sat down at a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro on Feb. 2, 1960.
Historical significance: Black college and high school students who sat at whites-only lunch counters in the South, in attempts to desegregate them, often faced vitriol – people spat on them and used abusive language. Another Greensboro sit-in galvanized a wave of sit-ins and demonstrations across the country that led to desegregated lunch counters and generated student interest in the Civil Rights Movement. (Photo courtesy Library of Congress)