Franklin McCain 'Greensboro Four,' who defied whites-only barrier -- dies

(CNN) -- Five decades ago, Franklin McCain and three fellow African-American college students made history just by sitting down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting -- for service that never came that day at the whites-only counter.

The four came back the next day. And the next.

The "Greensboro Four," as they came to be known, drew national attention with their peaceful demonstration in the winter of 1960.

Within three days of their first attempt to simply sit and eat, more than 300 students, including whites, were taking part in what was being called "a sit-in" in Greensboro.

Nearly six months later, with similar sit-ins happening at dozens of whites-only lunch counters in Southern cities, the counter where it all started served its first black customers.

McCain died Thursday after a brief illness, according to his alma mater, North Carolina A&T State University. He died in a hospital a few miles from the old Woolworth's location -- now the nonprofit International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which opened 50 years to the day McCain and his colleagues began their sit-in on February 1, 1960.

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