Born in Wilmington, N.C., McNeil grew up in the Catholic Church. His parish priest at St. Thomas was known to be a supporter of civil rights, and that influenced his attitude. He was similarly influenced by his teachers at Williston Senior High School, a “Black school” where study subjects may not have had parallels at white schools: Williston had “instructors who would pretty much tell you what your rights were as citizens: what you should have, what you don’t have, how you’re going to get them, how you should react if somebody invades your home. A man’s home is his castle,” he recalled for an interview later in his life.
“They always said things like, ‘They can take your house, your car, all your physical belongings, but they can’t take what you have up here’,” he continued, pointing to his head. “I think they pretty much imbued not only myself but others with a real sense of ‘Go out and do something’.” When he went on to college at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro on a full scholarship, he “went out and did something”: he and three other freshmen — Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, and David Richmond, who all lived on the same floor of the dormitory and shared similar interests — got together and started protesting bad treatment they were receiving. The group, which became known as the Greensboro Four, became best known after a “sit-in” at the lunch counter at a Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro. It started on February 1, 1960.
As they sat, a white waitress told them, “We don’t serve Negroes here.” Blair responded that he had just purchased something at the store. A Black person told them, “You’re just hurting race relations by sitting there.” But an elderly white woman told them, “I am just so proud of you. My only regret is that you didn’t do this ten or fifteen years ago.” The store manager didn’t call the police, so they sat there waiting for service until closing time …and then came back the next day, with 56 other students.
It wasn’t just a sit-in: the group wrote to the president of F.W. Woolworth asking the company to “to take a firm stand to eliminate discrimination. We firmly believe that God will give you courage and guidance in solving the problem.” By the third day, there were more than 60 students, including women and students from an area high school. By the fourth day, 300, filling the entire seating area — including some white students. The protest spread to other stores. On the fifth day, 50 white men beat the protestors to the lunch counter to oppose the students. There were arrests — of angry and unruly white counter-protestors. On the sixth day, more than a thousand protestors and counter-protestors showed up.
As the protests dragged on, President Dwight D. Eisenhower weighed in, saying he was “deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution.” That support helped the protests spread not just to other stores in Greensboro, but into neighboring cities — and states. By May 1960, stores in Nashville, Ga., desegregated their lunch counters. Greensboro stores held firm, so students called for boycotts — and store sales dropped by a third. Most stores gave in: money talked.
In general, the Black protestors kept to non-violence: it was the counter-protestors who were violent. Some reporters said the protestors were clearly inspired by Gandhi. “Bullshit,” McNeil said years later, laughing. “That Gandhi stuff, it was an expedient thing to do. It was the only thing we could do. We couldn’t afford to be violent. … We took abuse, physical abuse. But the overriding thing was the goddamned success of the movement. We figured that if we did become violent, we’d blow it. We’d blow the image that we were trying to project. And to a very large degree, when people tried to make us violent and did these things to us, it just heightened the cruelty of the entire situation. It dramatized what heretofore was a mental thing.”
Yet McNeil was far from a radical anarchist: the other thing he did in college was to join the U.S. Air Force’s ROTC — Reserve Officer Training Corps — the oldest source of commissioned officers for the U.S. Air Force. Once he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in engineering physics in 1963, McNeil was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the USAF, and served as a navigator in a KC-135 refueling tanker, serving in Southeast Asia, and promoted to first lieutenant, and captain.
He left active duty in 1969, but continued in the Air Force Reserve. By 1972, McNeil served as a navigator instructor, flight commander, executive officer, and Commander of the 702nd Military Airlift Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, and also served as a liaison officer to the U.S. Air Force Academy. He continued his promotions, to major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. From 1992 to 1995, he served as vice commander, and later commander, of the 22nd Air Force stationed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia — and promoted to brigadier general in 1994. In August 1995, McNeil served as mobilization assistant to the vice commander, and later the commander, at the Air Force Reserve Command Headquarters at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, and in 1996 was promoted to major general.
In 2000, Gen. McNeil retired from the Air Force Reserve after a military career of over 37 years, during which he flew 6,653 flight hours. He was awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal. While serving in the reserve, he also worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, retiring from there in 2002 after serving for over 15 years. In 2002 his school, North Carolina A&T, unveiled a statue of the Greensboro Four; each of the four also has a dorm named for him. Joseph Alfred McNeil died on September 4, from Parkinson’s disease. He was 83.
Note: Richmond died in 1990 from lung cancer at 49. McCain died from respiratory problems in 2014 at 73. Blair, who changed his name to Jibreel Khazan, is the sole survivor of the Greensboro Four; he is 83.