Ms. Virginia Williams

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On June 23, 1957, Miss Virginia Williams was 20 years old when she made history--as one of the "Royal Seven"--in a sit-in at Durham, North Carolina's Royal Ice Cream Parlor.

When the manager asked the seven to leave, Ms. Williams simply announced, "I'd like some ice cream, please."

This happened three years prior to the Greensboro Woolworth lunch counter sit-in. And we know that those activists who sparked the movement across college towns in the South and into the North knew of, and were inspired by, the Royal Seven!

June 23, 1957

Growing up in Seaboard, North Carolina, as the daughter of a sharecropper, Miss Williams had regularly watched her father dress up and leave home on Sunday afternoons, but he never told her or her siblings why.

At age 15, after badgering her mother repeatedly, Virginia learned that her father was attending NAACP meetings. This, of course, would be a grave risk to his livelihood, if anyone found out. When Virginia learned this, she vowed to leave the farm and go find herself a meeting. And when she moved to Durham, NC, that's exactly what she did.

After being arrested, when Miss Williams was at the police station, an officer looked at her and said to the youthful-looking woman, "If you were my daughter, I'd put you over my knee and spank you." Without missing a beat, Miss Williams responded, "If I was your daughter, we wouldn't be here for this."

(Mic drop.)