RALEIGH (AP) — Franklin McCain, who helped spark a movement of nonviolent, sit-in protests across the South by occupying a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960, has died in North Carolina. He was 73.
McCain’s son Frank McCain of Greensboro said Friday he died of respiratory complications late Thursday.
Franklin McCain was one of four freshmen students from North Carolina A&T State University who sat down at the “whites only” lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.
McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond returned the following days with other protesters growing to at least 1,000 by the fifth day. Within weeks, sit-ins launched in more than 50 cities in nine states. The Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro was desegregated within six months.
McCain became a research chemist. Richmond died in 1990.