Augusta Thomas was a 27-year-old wife and mother of five in Louisville, Ky., in 1960, when she saw four N.C. A&T students on TV holding a sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter here.
She told her husband and her father that she was going to help.
“If I don’t go and the next person doesn’t go and the next person doesn’t go,” she said, “who’s going to be there to help?”
Thomas, 83, who now lives in Washington and is a Vice President of the American Federation of Government Employees, was among the eight people recognized on Saturday by the International Civil Rights Center & Museum during its annual gala.
She received the Sit-in Participant’s Award, having followed through on her determination to help.
“I got knocked off a stool. I got spit on,” Thomas said. “But I was doing something that needed to be done.”
Since then, she had returned to Greensboro only one other time for a sit-in celebration in 2010, and she became emotional when she saw the lunch counter.
“It feels like home,” she said. “It brings tears to your eyes — especially seeing Joe.”
Joseph McNeil, one of the Greensboro Four, listened as the awards recipients discussed the changes brought by the young men’s efforts.
U.S. Rep., John Lewis, recipient of the International Historic Legends Award, spoke directly to McNeil.
“Thank you brother, for sitting down and sitting in,” he said.
For Lewis, exercising civil rights may mean getting in other people’s way”, he said.
The son of an Alabama sharecropper, he said that as a child, he couldn’t understand why there were different water fountains, bathrooms and diners for blacks and whites.
“They said, ‘That’s the way it is. Don’t get in the way. Don’t get into trouble,’” Lewis said. “Joseph and his colleagues inspired me to get in the way.”
Lewis, who marched with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said King recognized the importance of students sitting in during peaceful demonstrations.
“So, this is a historic place,” he said. “I feel blessed to be here.”
Amelia Parker, the former museum director, said a collaboration with Oba Kabiru Adewale Shotobi of Nigeria, the recipient of this year’s Vanguard Award, helps the museum connect people with their cultures.
Shotobi donated his coronation regalia to the museum for a display. It is intended to help educate the public on other cultures, Museum Director John Swaine said. It helps people to connect with their history and preserve their culture, Parker said.
Unsung Hero Award recipient, Robert “Bob” Brown said the Civil Rights Movement is not complete.
“The fight is not over,” Brown said. “Sometimes, we get relaxed and laid back. But there are too many roadblocks that are left over.”