news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Amy Adamson wore a strapless deep-green evening gown as she wandered through the throngs of people as fashionably dressed as Hollywood at the Oscars.

“The students wouldn’t know what to make of her,” said Dennis LaJeunesse, also a UNCG biology researcher and Adamson’s husband. “I’m just her accessory.”

Such was the sold-out $100-a-plate fundraiser celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins and the opening of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. Diamonds and tuxedos.

Although the celebration at the Koury Convention Center was delayed by two weeks because of snow- and ice-covered roads, people such as Gwendolyn Sellers seemed to make up for it.

“We’ve still got a lot of celebrating to do,” said Sellars, Bennett College Class of 1959, while holding court in a mink coat with fox trim and diamond choker.

“Girl, how long has it been?” a woman asks her before they realize it’s been decades.

Mel Swann, a longtime former Greensboro City Schools administrator, traded his jeans for a black tux, and wife Jean, who taught at N.C. A&T, chose a mustard yellow two-piece suit.

“I’ve seen more of my former students than you could guess,” Swann said as others recognized him.

The former mayor and a sit-in participant, Yvonne Johnson, in a Donna Karan red dress, earlier read to children at the new museum.

“Afterward, this little girl said, 'Can I hug you?’ and more than anything, that made my day,” Johnson said. “Thank God for the unique opportunities the museum will provide.”

It wasn’t all just glamour and glitz.

Standing out with pink carnations on their suits were Greg Meyer and Innocent Ndagijimana, political dissidents from Rwanda working for democratic elections back in their homeland.

“Being here in a free country, you can raise awareness and maybe the U.S., a great country, can help Rwanda have a free election,” Ndagijimana said as such civil rights stalwarts as Henry Frye, the first black chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, and Jesse Jackson, an A&T grad who ran for president, socialized.

The Rwandans had come with attorney Jackie Camp of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, which secured the tax credits that provided much of the money to complete the museum’s construction.

“The museum is supposed to be not just what happened then but what’s happening now around the world,” said Camp. “It’s in places like Rwanda that these freedoms are being tested.”

Nor was the purpose of the celebration lost on Nadia Moffett, of High Point, who was wearing her Miss North Carolina USA sash over a Grecian-styled white off-the-shoulder Jovani gown.

“Somebody just came up to me and said, 'You know, that wouldn’t have happened 50 years go,’” Moffett, a UNCG graduate, said. The woman was talking about Moffett’s African American roots and her title. “Tonight is so significant to me because we have so many things to celebrate.”

Joseph McNeil, one of the Greensboro Four, who sat down at the segregated Woolworth lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960, launching a movement, spoke of walking the sidewalk of the museum today. He remembered all those who jeered where he stepped, and the thousands who supported the effort over time.

“You cannot believe the emotions that swell within my soul,” McNeil said as Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair Jr.), another member, sat on the raised dais in the convention center ballroom alongside him.

Franklin McCain, the third surviving member, was hundreds of miles away, stuck in an airport because of snow. The fourth participant, David Richmond, died in 1990.

Longtime activist Julian Bond, who could not attend the rescheduled dinner, accepted the Alston/Jones International Civil and Human Rights Award via video.

Radio personality Tom Joyner, who has raised millions of dollars for students at historically black colleges and universities, was given the Unsung Hero Award. He, too, accepted the award in a video message.

Adding to the jubilant mood was the announcement that the inaugural 1960 Society, which provides annual support for the museum, had reached more than twice its $350,000 fundraising goal.

“I think a lot of it had to do with the moment, the idea of what the museum represents really touching people, and it was the opportunity to be a part of history,” said Neil Belenky, who along with Frye, was co-chairman of the fundraising effort.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com