Key Players
Jesse Jackson
One of the best-known civil rights leaders in America, he is often incorrectly connected to the sit-ins of 1960. In fact, Jackson was attending the University of Illinois on a football scholarship that year. He transferred to N.C. A&T State University in the fall of 1960, after the demonstrations at the Woolworth store. In 1963, as student body president at A&T, Jackson led demonstrations downtown in an attempt to integrate the theaters there and the old Mayfair and S&W cafeterias. Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil were active with Jackson in that effort.