"royal ice cream parlor" news and stories

While standard civil rights histories give the most ink to the 1960 demonstration at a Greensboro Woolworth's, that lunch counter wasn't the site of the state's first sit-in -- and now there's a historical marker to prove it.

Durham, N.C., this week celebrated the formal unveiling of a marker on the site of the now-defunct Royal Ice Cream Parlor, more than 52 years after a group of black students known as "The Loyal Seven" challenged its segregationist policies.

Two of the protesters and a relative of the Royal's owner -- who organizer Eddie Davis describes as having "a different kind of sensibility" than his Jim Crow-upholding ancestor -- attended the ceremony. "It was sort of a reconciliation, bringing about unity and respect," Davis says.