If you resided in the neighborhood and walked down Sunnyside Street in Staunton, Virginia, the birthplace of President Woodrow Wilson, chances are you passed the yellow house with green trimmings occupied by Mr. Harry Ellis, his wife and two daughters.
Now here’s another image that’s etched in our memories; the two “apples” in Mr. Ellis’ eyes were his two cars, both Fords, one dark blue and the other chocolate brown in color. Passersby would see Mr. Ellis washing and waxing his prized cars, sometimes several times a week. And it didn’t take long for everyone in the neighborhood to understand that Mr. Ellis’ cars were strictly off limits… “okay to see, but don’t touch.”
And if the truth be told, neighborhood boys understood that the “see but don’t touch” rule extrapolated in its application to his two young daughters, Pattie Jean and Leona. Uh, uh, you didn’t go there, period. That was the unspoken.
Now that was the reality during the late 50s and early 60s, a period in American history that witnessed the birth of the Civil Rights movement that swept our nation. We’ll return to Pattie Jean Ellis, the focus of this narrative shortly. But to provide a context for her legacy let’s revisit a watershed moment in the Civil Rights movement in which she was an active participant, the student protests and lunch counter sit-in in downtown Greensboro, NC.
Greensboro Four
The Greensboro sit-ins were nonviolent protests in 1960, primarily in the Woolworth store which led to the store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the United States. The sit-ins were the best-known ones of the civil rights movement and considered a catalyst to subsequent sit-in movements in which 70,000 people in cities throughout the South participated, among them Pattie Jean Ellis. The sit-in strategy was a contributing factor in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The Greensboro Four (as they became known) were Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond, all students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. During their freshman year, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and his practice of nonviolent protest, they met in their dorm rooms to discuss strategy.
In1959, McNeil attempted to buy a hot dog at the Greensboro Greyhound Lines station but was refused service. Shortly thereafter, the four men decided that it was time to take action against segregation and came up with a simple plan: occupy seats at the local F. W. Woolworth, ask to be served, and when they were inevitably denied service, they would not leave. They planned to repeat this process every day for as long as it would take. Their goal was to attract widespread media attention to the issue, forcing Woolworth to implement desegregation.
F. W. Woolworth
On February 1, 1960, the four sat down at the lunch counter after purchasing toothpaste and other products from a desegregated counter at the store with no problems but were refused service at the store’s lunch counter. They stayed until the store closed that night and went back to campus and recruited more students to join them the next morning.
The next day, more than twenty students joined the sit-in. They sat with schoolwork to stay busy but were again refused service. They were spat on and harassed by the white customers. However, the sit-ins made local news on the second day with reporters, a TV cameraman and police officers present throughout the day. Back on campus that night, the Student Executive Committee for Justice was organized, and sent a letter asking the president of F.W. Woolworth to “take a firm stand to eliminate discrimination.”
As the sit-ins continued, students began a far-reaching boycott of other stores with segregated lunch counters. Sales at those stores dropped by a third leading their owners to abandon segregation policies after nearly $200,000 in losses ($2.1 million in 2023 dollars). The sit-in strategy soon spread to other cities in the south.
Now back northward to Staunton, Virginia, 190 miles from Greensboro, the birthplace of Pattie Jean Ellis.
Pattie Jean was born in 1942 in Augusta County and was a 1961 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School in Staunton. During her four years as a student at all-Black Booker T, young Pattie walked downtown past F. W. Woolworth and peered through the front window at a “whites only” lunch counter that denied her a seat based on the color of her skin.
Little did she know that years later she would play an indirect role in striking down the sick rationale that sustained what she saw through that Woolworth window.
Did those experiences growing up as an African American in segregated Staunton influence her ultimate decision to become active in the Civil Rights movement? Perhaps.
Does her life story tell us anything about the quality of education at Booker T., its caring teachers and how much that school integration cost the Black community? Perhaps – no, correction, absolutely!
After leaving home Pattie Jean attended Bennett College and graduated from North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro. Perhaps heavily influenced by her growing up in Staunton, Pattie Jean soon became a Civil Rights activist and a member of CORE while a college student. She has a contribution listed as follows with the Civil Rights Digital Library.
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“Pattie E. Banks was born in Staunton, Virginia. She attended Bennett College from 1960 through 1963 and graduated from North Carolina A&T State University in 1968. Banks was a member of Greensboro Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was active in the 1962 and 1963 demonstrations for desegregation of businesses in downtown Greensboro.” –From Greensboro VOICES Biography, “Banks, Pattie E.” accessed 8 October 2008.
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Pattie Jean was an English professor for her entire professional career, having taught at Guilford Technical Institute, as well as at North Carolina A&T. She was loved by her students and members of the Library Literary Guild she led. She passed away on Monday, April 20, 2020, at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro.
Asked to share their memories of the late Pattie Jean, several in the neighborhood didn’t hesitate to recall her as a quiet and studious person:
“I remember Pattie Jean as an outstanding piano player during Sunday school at the Agusta Street Methodist Church. I recall sitting on the swing on her front porch with her sister and hearing Pattie Jean playing the piano inside.”
“Pattie Jean was a serious student. I also remember playing dodge ball with her and others in the street in front of my aunt’s house on Baptist Street. She was very competitive yet so smart.”
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” challenged President Reagan in a 1987 speech aimed at Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about the Berlin wall. So, thanks to Staunton native Pattie Jean Ellis and others who, 20 years earlier, said through their courageous actions, “Mr. Woolworth, tear down those damn whites only posters!”
