WILMINGTON — As part of his funeral to be held in Wilmington on Saturday, a civil rights pioneer will take one last trek down a roadway named in his honor in his hometown.
READ MORE: Funeral services for Joseph McNeil announced for Wilmington, flags to fly half-staff
ALSO: Greensboro Four civil rights icon, Wilmington native dies
Major Gen. Joseph McNeil — one of the Greensboro Four who picketed Woolworth’s Department Store’s segregated lunch counter in the Sixties — died Thursday, Sept. 4. He attended Williston High School in Wilmington and graduated in 1959 before attending A&T University.
His homecoming takes place on Saturday, Sept. 13, at 1 p.m. at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, 4925 New Centre Dr., in Wilmington — and thereafter McNeil will have his internment at Pine Forest Cemetery.
However, before the services, from noon to 12:30 p.m., Ina Brown McNeil will escort her husband’s remains along Major Gen. Joseph McNail Way, which is on N. Third Street from Market to Davis streets. The community is welcome to line up along the corridor for a final goodbye to honor a man whose impact was far-reaching in American civil rights.
McNeil, Jibreel Khazan (née Ezell Blair Jr.), Franklin McCain and David Richmond were the Greensboro Four, a moniker dubbed after they decided to sit at a “white’s only” lunch counter in F.W. Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960. Despite management and law enforcement prompting them to leave, they refused and remained until closing.
However, the next day they returned, and everyday after for five months, with protestors joining them and growing daily, to host sit-ins — non-violent actions to speak against the inequality of Black people across the segregated South. These demonstrations took off in other Southern cities as well and by July 1960 Woolworth’s desegregated its service policy.
All are invited to show support for McNeil, also a decorated war veteran. Flags will fly half-staff in his honor on Saturday and the city welcomes signs and symbols of unity to be shown in his honor.
“This gathering is a moment to reflect on his selfless service, both as a civil rights pioneer and a decorated military leader,” the City of Wilmington noted in a release. “It is also a time to express our collective gratitude and pride for his enduring impact on our community and our country.”
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