Franklin McCain was born in Union County, North Carolina and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. He graduated from North Carolina A&T in 1964 with a degree in chemistry and biology. McCain’s civil rights work extended to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he served as chair of the North Carolina regional committee. He went to work for the Celanese Corp. and served on the governing board of North Carolina’s state university system and Bennett College.
The Woolworth’s where McCain and the other students sparked a historical change in the fabric of civil rights history is now the International Civil Rights Center museum. The museum opened exactly 50 years after the Greensboro Four efforts. A part of the lunch counter is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Sadly, Frank McCain passed away last week from a reported “brief illness” only a few blocks away from the Woolworth’s where he helped to spark change of an entire nation.
The Greensboro Four:
Franklin McCain (Deceased)
Ret. Maj Gen. Joseph McNeil
Ezell A. Blair Jr. (Now Jibreel Khazan)
David Richmond (Deceased)
Little Known Black History Fact: Franklin McCain was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
