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Middle College at NC A&T will be renamed to honor students who led sit-in

A monument to the A&T Four on the North Carolina A&T campus. Courtesy NC A&T

The Middle College at North Carolina A&T State University will change its name to honor four former students whose sit-in made civil rights history.  

The Guilford County Board of Education has unanimously approved a measure renaming the school as “The A&T Four Middle College at North Carolina A&T State University.”

The name honors Ezell Blair, Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond, the A&T students who refused to give up their seats at the segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Greensboro. Their 1960 sit-in helped spark the nationwide civil rights movement.

Following the vote at Tuesday night's meeting, Middle College Principal Travis Seegars thanked the board for approving the name change.

"I was able to bring pretty much a lot of my community ... former parents, current parents, staff members are here tonight just super excited. Thank you so much. We are happy about this name change, just the fact that we now get to submit ourselves even more so in the legacy of the A&T Four," Seegars told the board. 

The Middle College is an all-male high school located on the campus of N.C. A&T.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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