Eula Butchart's Role in the Woolworth Sit-Ins

In 1960, the whites-only lunch counter at Woolworths in Greensboro, NC became the focus of the civil rights movement when four students from A&T sat down, politely asked to be served, and refused to leave until they were. The sit-in movement spread to Woolworths and other stores across the South. But in Greensboro, it was a petite white woman named Eula Butchart who volunteered to serve Woolworths black employees at the lunch counter, thus ending the sit-ins there. Her role has never been publicly acknowledged, though the story was shared within the family. In January 2011, filmmaker Les Butchart was visiting with his Uncle Edward (an ex-Marine who now plays Santa Claus at Stone Mountain, GA), and the founder of FODA - Friends of Disabled Adults, who agreed to go on the record about his mother, Eula, and what she did at Woolworths on July 25, 1960.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Woolworths
• sit-ins
• sit-in movement
• Butchart
• Edward Butchart
• Les Butchart
• civil rights
• civil rights movement