North Carolina A&T State University gets most of the credit for the Greensboro sit-ins, but the women of Bennett College also played a signficant role. Bennett alumna Vernicia Hampton Hairston was honored as an unsung hero during a luncheon in honor of sit-in activists Friday at A&T.

Hairston went downtown between classes to sit at the F.W. Woolworth conter and to picket outside. Wiling to serve wherever she was needed, she recalls being spat on by white farmers and taunted by police officers with dogs.