Greensboro, NC - Occupy Wall Street began with a challenging but peaceful statement, that 99% of Americans were controlled by a small number of very powerful people, and this is the same concept that the Greensboro Four protested in 1960.
The Greensboro Four peacefully sat at the Woolworth's store simply asking for a cup of coffee, and after being refused service because they were black, the four sat at the counter until closing.
Over the next ten days, students across the state began to particpate in similar sit-ins, marking the beginning of the "Sit-In Movement." This movement spread to over 250 cities across the country.
The Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York City, but as it spread, it began to take a very different path than that of the Greensboro Four.
Occupy turned violent, and with no one leader, the hope to change the world disentegrated into angry mobs.
What Occupy and any movement can learn from the Greensboro Four is no matter what, remain peaceful, understand the goal of winning hearts and minds, and as the civil rights movement had in Martin Luther King, Jr., find a leader who is a brilliant communicator.