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Two figures loomed larger than the day’s special guests at the Sit-In Anniversary Celebration on Friday at N.C. A&T.

Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, was on the mind of a crowd marking how far the country has come since segregation.

Dennis Hayle, an A&T senior gunned down by unknown assailants this week, was a reminder of how much is left to be done — ending violence and preserving young men for great things.

Chancellor Stanley Battle referenced the triumph and tragedy in his opening remarks at a breakfast in the school’s Williams Cafeteria.

“Barack Obama may be president,” Battle said, “but the world still moves in an evil way.”

The event commemorated the 49th anniversary of the Woolworth’s sit-ins in downtown Greensboro, when four A&T freshmen demanded service at a segregated lunch counter and sparked a national protest movement.

The day’s guest speaker, NAACP chairman Julian Bond, spoke of the four’s influence, crediting them with inspiring him and his friends to stage sit-ins in Atlanta. Bond said he saw a direct link between the Greensboro sit-ins and Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House.

“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” Bond said, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. “And 49 years ago, it bent toward Greensboro. There’s an inescapable line between what happened here then and what is happening there now.”

The surviving members of the Greensboro Four — Franklin McCain, Jibreel Khazan (Ezell A. Blair Jr.) and Joseph McNeil — were on hand at the breakfast, telling their tale and relating it to today’s students.

“We witness a continuum of civil rights in the election of Barack Obama,” said McCain. “Some of you worked very hard to get him elected. Some of you even got on the bus to go to Washington, D.C., and see the inauguration. But I’m going to admonish you that if that’s all you’re going to do for President Obama, you have played a very cruel hoax on him. The work has just begun.”

McCain encouraged the students in attendance to continue to “get on the bus” in local, state and national politics just as he did as a student.

Another civil rights icon, Diane Nash, received the school’s Human Rights Medal. Nash followed the example of the Greensboro Four to help organize sit-ins in Nashville and became famous as one of the Freedom Riders who traveled Southern states in 1961 to challenge segregation.

Nash was jailed many times — including a stint in a Jackson, Miss., jail while pregnant with her first child.

“At the time none of us knew if we would be successful or not,” Nash told the crowd.

“In Nashville we were joining the A&T Four in doing sit-ins. But they didn’t join anybody — they stepped out on their own.”

Of the dangers faced by students active in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Nash told current A&T students, “We did it for you.”

“We were doing what we did for generations unborn,” Nash said. “And you should keep in mind that future generations are relying on you to do the same.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com