A Shining Moment

Fifty years ago Monday, Carl Matthews sat down alone at the segregated lunch counter at the Kress store in downtown Winston-Salem. The city would never be the same. Neither would Matthews.

"It's been a long, hard difficult journey since that day I sat there at that lunch counter," said Matthews, a 78-year-old who has had work and legal problems in the years after the protest he's never really left behind.

The concept of America segregated by law seems foreign in a time when many Americans have stopped talking about the novelty of having our first African-American president. Blacks and whites breaking bread together in Winston-Salem is a sight taken for granted. But that was forbidden by law a generation ago. Matthews was the point man in a struggle that led to the city desegregating lunch counters -- the first sit-in victory in the state.

"He was the faithful one," said Bill Stevens of Oak Ridge, who took part in the protest as a student at Wake Forest College.

Threats and spit

Matthews, then a 28-year-old with a degree in education, was working on the loading dock at McLean Trucking in Winston-Salem. He got his idea for the protest from the sit-ins at the Woolworth store in downtown Greensboro. They'd started the previous week, and would spark similar protests across the state. Several blacks discouraged him, he said, saying that the four protesters in Greensboro "were going to get us all killed."

His memories of his own protest are vivid and painful. He took notes from day one, he said. He sat down one day last week and told his story, his flowing white hair framing intense eyes.

The protesters he emulated quickly became known as "the Greensboro four." Matthews could have been called "the Winston-Salem one."

When he took his seat at the Kress counter on Feb. 8, 1960, a waitress said "We don't serve colored people" and told him to leave. "I said, ‘I'm here in the name of freedom. This is something I'm going to do in support of the men in Greensboro. I'm going to be here because I deserve to be here,' " Matthews said.

He smoked cigarettes as the afternoon dragged on. "Two men in bib overalls sat on either side so close they could kiss me on the cheek," he said. One said, ‘Have you ever sat this close to a nigger before?' The other guy said, ‘Yeah, I did one time before we took him out and lynched him.' "

The men were chewing tobacco, he said, and their spittle dried on his cheeks. Two large black men walked in and asked him if he needed help, Matthews said. The white men in bib overalls left.

"An old lady, about as old as I am now or older, she just pranced all around where I was sitting," he said. "She used all kinds of profanity and told me, ‘Why don't you go home?'

"Some people made gestures to hit me, but nobody did." Matthews said he was committed to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s model of nonviolence and was determined not to hit back if he was struck.

He stayed at the counter for at least five hours, until the store closed that day.

The next day, students from what is now Winston-Salem State University joined the protest. One was Victor Johnson. "The city wasn't living up to its name," said Johnson, now a member of the board of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. "It was supposed to be an ‘all-American City,' and we didn't see anything all-American about eating at separate lunch counters and using separate bathrooms.

"After serving in the Army for three years, I felt like I didn't have to tolerate this. We'd already integrated the services." In the local protest, Johnson said, Matthews "kind of showed us what we could do."

The sit-in eventually moved to Woolworth and other lunch counters in downtown Winston-Salem. Students from Atkins High School joined. And, on Feb. 23, so did white students from Wake Forest College. They were encouraged by Mac Bryan, a religion professor. Larry Womble, one of the participants from Winston-Salem State, said the entry of the Wake Forest students was the game-changer for white leaders. "They really didn't start talking serious about it (desegregating the lunch counters) until the white students joined it," said Womble, now a state representative for Forsyth County.

Highly-publicized arrests were made. The sit-ins continued until late May of 1960, when city officials reached an agreement with store managers to desegregate the lunch counters -- the first such agreement in the state. Matthews was the first black served. He had a soda float. When he was done, the waitress threw the glass in a trash can. "It wasn't a day anything like the first day, but she had plenty of attitude," he said.

The Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, where the sit-in movement had started, didn't desegregate until a few months later, in July.

One person active in civil rights at the time downplays the importance of the protests that Matthews started. The Rev. Jerry Drayton said that what caused the desegregation of the lunch counters was the work of a biracial commission that he served on. The behind-the-scenes negotiations of Drayton and others with white power brokers were certainly crucial in the general desegregation of the city. But speaking specifically of the lunch counters, Womble said, "I'm not going to vigorously disagree with Dr. Drayton, but all that talking behind the scenes was not paying off until after we got down there (in the protests.)"

Struggling after the protests

Many civil-rights protesters, both here and nationwide, went on to illustrious careers.

But Matthews said he lost his job at McLean Trucking because of his involvement. He said he couldn't find other work here for the same reason, and eventually left town.

Womble said: "I know that Carl is a very determined, committed person, and sometimes that rubs people the wrong way. He would not just go along to get along."

Matthews irritated some people by constantly touting his leading role in the civil-rights movement. He said that some black leaders turned against him because he moved too fast on civil rights.

He lived in New York City for a while. He was arrested there on cocaine charge, was convicted and did two years in federal prison.

He moved back here and lived with his mother. He wrote a 700-page autobiography that was never published. With the big battles of the civil-rights movement over, Matthews struggled to find his place. He twice ran for city council and was twice beaten by one of his neighbors, veteran councilwoman Vivian Burke. "He made an excellent decision when he did the sit-down," Burke said, but she emphasized that he was joined by several others.

Matthews said he lives on $694 monthly in Social Security payments and food stamps. He is battling the city over a potential condemnation order on his Cumberland Road house. The city says a crumbling stone wall there poses a safety threat. He plans to file for an extension, he said, and the order is related to problems he's had with Burke. Burke said that's not true, and if he needs help, she'll recommend that the extension be given.

Matthews has savored some success, both his own and those of the civil-rights movement as a whole. In 1997, he helped collect more than 3,500 signatures in a successful petition drive to get the gym at Atkins Middle School (the former Atkins High) renamed for Samuel Everett Cary, who was a coach and mentor when Matthews was a student there. In 2000, the 40th anniversary of his lonely stand, officials finally honored a beaming Matthews and the local sit-in movement with a ceremony and marker on Fourth Street, near where the Kress store stood.

And in the fall of 2008, he cast his vote for Obama.

Matthews seems to accept the problems he's had since the sit-in. "There are people who say they are leaders, but where are their scars?" he asked. "How many scars do they have as a result of what they've done?"

He occasionally goes downtown and lingers by the marker, alone with memories of the protest he started. His pain was worth it, he said, and he realizes that every time he passes that marker. "I thank God for it, because I do have a little marker to show that I've been through here."

jrailey@wsjournal.com
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