Media/Headlines
Lunch Service Is Resumed At Stores
[Arrests made at Winston-Salem, Charlotte. Front Page.]
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Wednesday, February 24, 1960.
The lunch counters at the downtown stores of F. W. Woolworth Co. and S. H. Kress & Co. were re-opened yesterday without any fanfare.
They had been closed since Feb. 6 because of sitdown demonstrations.
Only white customers patronized the counters yesterday, although there are no signs to indicate the lunch counters are segregated.
The managers of the stores refused to discuss the companies future policy in case there is another sitdown by Negroes.
To Follow Custom
C. L. Harris, manager of Woolworth's, was asked what management plans to do if there is another sitdown movement here. He gave this cryptic reply:
"What other restaurants do, we'll do. We'll abide by local custom. I have no other statement to make."
H. E. Hogate, manager of the Kress store here, declined to discuss the policy his firm will follow if Negroes show up at the lunch counters.
"We originally closed the lunch counter in the interests of public safety. We re-opened it because we thought it safe to do so," was Hogate's only comment.
The lunch counters opened at 9:30 a.m. with the other departments of the stores.