This Day in 1960...

There are definitely times when I think that a young professional like myself, with an entry-level position and just enough money each month to pay for rent and loans, has little-to-no chance of making a difference in the world. However, these guys prove quite the contrary...

{via NPR}

"On Feb 1, 1960, four freshmen at North Carolina AT&T, frustrated by the slow pace of change took action into their own hands when they sat at a lunch counter at Woolworth's — in those days a Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and McDonalds all rolled together — and tried to order a coffee. Rattled by this breach of the color line, the flustered manager simply closed the place down.

But the idea caught on. The next day four students turned into twenty-five, then twenty-five into sixty-three, sixty-three into three hundred. Likewise, one city became two, two cities became three, three cities became thirty by March first. Within a few months, the sit-ins had spread to more than seventy southern cities and fifty thousand people.

...So this week when you settle into your favorite coffee shop, think back fifty years to those four college freshmen and how their inability to engage in this very same ordinary pleasure triggered a revolution that changed America. Maybe this will be the cup that inspires you?"

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)