Source: Radio One Digital / Radio One Digital
David Richmond is one of the original four who took part in the Woolworth sit-ins. He grew up in Greensboro, NC and received his early education at James B. Dudley High School. After graduating, he entered North Carolina A&T State University in the Fall of 1959, where he majored in business administration and accounting. After leaving A&T, he became a counselor for the CETA program in Greensboro, but was eventually forced to leave Greensboro because his life was threatened. He relocated to the mountain community of Franklin, North Carolina.
He spent nine years in Franklin, until his return to Greensboro to care for his ailing parents. Richmond was the only one of the Greensboro Four to return to the city. He had a hard time finding a job as he had to fight the stigma of being a troublemaker. He was finally able to find work as a janitor for the Greensboro Health Care Center. In 2980, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce awarded him the Levi Coffin Award for “leadership in human rights, human relations and human resources development in Greensboro.”
Richmond died of lung cancer in 1990 at the age of 49. He was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities degree by North Carolina A&T and in 2010 the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.
