Melvin Watt: “I start kind of like the author of the cartoon, Curtis, with the understanding that you really cannot do justice to…”

“I start kind of like the author of the cartoon, Curtis, with the understanding that you really cannot do justice to practice Black History Month in either 3 minutes or a month. The contributions that black people have made to this country require an ongoing education and input about the many facets of the contributions. So I want to limit my remarks today to a very, very narrow window, and that is some things that came out of my congressional district in Greensboro, NC, starting on February 1, 1960 at the Woolworth lunch counter where the sit-ins started, to give us the right to be able to go into a restaurant and sit down and have a meal. I mean, this is something that in 1996 is so far removed from anything that we can imagine that so many people have started to take it for granted. It was at the Woolworth's lunch counter that these sit-ins started on February 1, 1960, and they were started by four students who were attending the North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC.”