The International Civil Rights Center and Museum opened Monday on the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins at Woolworth’s. Attendees of the ribbon-cutting celebrated the opening and reflected that the struggle is not over.Fifty years ago on Feb. 1, four A&T students sat at a whites-only counter in the Woolworth’s downtown Greensboro, requesting to be served. Their actions caused a sit-in movement to spread across the South. On Monday, 50 years to the day after the sit-ins began, the ceremonial ribbon-cutting formally opened the museum, located in the former Woolworth’s building.

The ribbon-cutting was preceded by speakers including Tom Perez of the Obama Administration, Senator Kay Hagan, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue, and Franklin McCain, one of the four students who sat at the lunch counter in 1960.

The celebration came after years of planning and financial difficulties. In 1993, when Woolworth’s closed, Melvin “Skip” Alston and Earl F. Jones started Sit-In Movement, Inc., and initiated the process of turning the building into a museum.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” said Detiste Gilmore, a spectator at the ribbon-cutting. “These men have worked hard to pull off this museum without the support of the city, the county, even the citizens that go out and vote.”

Greensboro residents voted against funding the museum twice. Even so, the spirit of the day celebrated what the four A&T students started 50 years ago.

“Civil rights still matter,” said Gilmore, “everybody in this country needs to understand that everybody has the right to be treated as a human being.”

Others, such as Rev. Nelson Johnson of the Beloved Community Center, are concerned that the museum will treat civil rights as a purely historical movement and will favor being civil as opposed to talking about current injustices.

“The museum should not be used as a cover or disguise for a mountain of injustices that continue to exist,” said Johnson. “The struggle indeed continues.