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GREENSBORO – Saturday morning, hundreds of people packed the Kourey Convention Center in Greensboro to reflect on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins. The three surviving members of the sit-ins were there to give a firsthand account of what happened on Feb. 1, 1960.

As a part of this weekend's Martin Luther King Jr. Day festivities, people are paying tribute to the event that sparked the civil rights movement.

"We knew what the requirements were," said Franklin McCain, who participated in the 1960 sit-in. "We knew what the objectives were and we knew that there was a price to pay, and we were ready to pay that price."

It was a price that four black men – Joseph McNeil, Jibreel Khazan, Franklin McCain and David Richmond – were ready to pay.

"It was time for an act of defiance. It was time for an act of civil disobedience and even though the state law said that segregation was the law of the land, it's as time to disobey those laws and the sit-ins begin," said McNeil.

The men say their act of bravery was about more than sitting next to a white person; it was about choice.

"Rich, poor, colored, white, whatever color you are, it's about consciousness and character," said Khazan.

David Richmond died in 1990 of lung cancer. However, prior to his death, the fourth member also shared his stories of the fearlessness he shared with the men of North Carolina A&T State University.

"We knew that it was going to happen. We knew that in our hearts it was going to be successful, and we knew that the opposition just wasn't going to roll over and play dead simply because we were knocking at the door," said McCain.

The men say their vision combined with faith and determination is what gave them the fortitude to sit at the counter day after day. It's the same determination that inspired others to join them.

"I felt that there was something that I needed to do to help people," said Augusta Thomas, one of the freedom fighters.

"February the 12th, I sat in. Feb. 13, I sat in, and both days I got spit on, I got knocked off the stool, I back up, I got back on the stool," said Thomas. "They knocked us off they would kick us and they would take sticks and beat us. They beat me cause I was fair skinned and they thought I was a white woman taking up for the black people. But I'm black," said Thomas.

Thomas traveled from Kentucky to Greensboro to fight the fight. 60 years later she reunited with the men who helped shape race relations across the country.

"The sit-in movement is the flame that lit the torch," said Khazan.