From the Digital Crate: What If the Greensboro Four Had Twitter?
February 1st marks the anniversary of what I like to refer to as one of the greatest days in American History. On that day in 1960, four young Black men—Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond—all first year students at HBCU North Carolina A&T, sat at a Whites only lunch counter at a Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, North Carolina.
This protest—formally known as a sit-in—began weeks of similar protests, that went viral throughout the American South in ways that mirror the functions of today’s social media. The Greensboro sit-ins are widely remembered as the moment of activism that gave renewed energy and vigor to a Civil Rights Movement that was sputtering after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
The Greensboro Four, of course, did not have access to social media such as Twitter and Facebook, but nevertheless utilized what would have been the accessible technology of the days like land-lines, good-old fashion word of mouth, and what was really the cutting edge technology of the day: a mimeograph machine. Those young folk, who would months after Greensboro, go on to create the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the watchful eye of Ella Jo Baker, understood technology, including television, as simply one of the tools they employed to make their case.
Civil Rights activist brilliantly exploited television cameras, helping to bring the marches in the streets straight into the living rooms of average Americans, whether they wanted to see it or not. Many activists from the era point to the role that televised footage of young Black Americans being hosed down and attacked by police dogs played in generating sympathy for a nation that had been largely indifferent.
The spirit of the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s and the role that technology played during that time has been recalled in the last year with regards to the Georgia Prison Strike, the Arab Spring, the #Occupy Movement and the State murder of Troy Davis.
Whereas prisoners in Georgia State prisons used disposable cell phones to organize non-violent protest via text messaging, Twitter and Facebook have been critical tools for the largely young folks taking to the streets in the Middle East. In these cases, the ruling governments responded by shutting down internet access and eventually cell phone and traditional land-line coverage when protestors resorted to old-school forms of communication.
Among Black social media users in the United States, Twitter and Facebook were utilized by those who created on-line petitions to protest an Ohio court decision to convict Kelly Williams-Bolar of “fraud” in response to her attempt to establish a second residency in a better school district for her two daughters, as was also the case with the highly visible efforts to save Troy Davis’ life The efforts among, Black “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (like myself) mirror recent advocacy efforts for the Jena 6, the Scott Sisters, and Haitian Earthquake relief—efforts that challenge perceptions that social media only has a mind-numbing effect on young people.
Recalling the efforts in support of Williams-Bolar, critic and scholar Kyra D. Gaunt acknowledged that “Twitter came along it felt like a change to me.” Still it’s important to remember that, Social Media is simply a tool that connects to the long established human desire to resist oppression and suppression.
As young folk, in particular, find more innovative and effective forms of Social Media, there will be those who seek to co-opt it for other designs. 50 years ago, Black radio was an important cog in the ability for organizers to get their message out to the Black masses, yet one would be hard pressed to think of Radio One—the largest Black-owned radio company—playing such a role in this environment.
As the events quickly unfold throughout the world, it will become clear that many are looking at Social Media in a new light, whether its Twitter, Facebook or the memories of four young men sitting at a lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.
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Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press) and Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University. He is founder and managing editor of NewBlackMan and host of the weekly webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.
