Civil Rights icon Joseph McNeil's courage honored at Hempstead funeral
Hours before the pews filled with mourners Monday at Union Baptist Church in Hempstead, Kangisi McNeil shared one last moment with his late grandfather.
McNeil, 26, unfurled a quilt emblazoned with a star and a U.S. Air Force logo and draped it over the half-open coffin of Joseph McNeil, a civil rights icon and longtime Hempstead resident who died Thursday at age 83. Kangisi McNeil is a member of the Standing Rock Reservation, and the ritual is native to the culture, he said.
The quilts are designated for people of "high significance or high honor," including Joseph McNeil, the grandson said.
"He was able to have a touch on the world that's just monumental," Kangisi McNeil told Newsday. "Being able to live and experience that, it's something that's sometimes hard to put into words."
McNeil said he felt a rush of "gratitude and pride" as he lay the blanket over his grandfather's body. That was a common sentiment Monday at Union Baptist.
Joseph McNeil was remembered for his act of civil disobedience on Feb. 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and three other Black freshmen at North Carolina A&T — later dubbed the "Greensboro Four" — sat at the "whites only" Woolworth's lunch counter. They refused to leave despite being denied service and amid police pressure.
State Sen. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) said during the service that McNeil's legacy will remain strong.
"I believe his work, working to desegregate the South, sitting at a counter, ignited a passion for service for so many people," Bynoe told those in attendance.
Sedgwick V. Easley, the pastor at Union Church, said in an interview before the service that the actions of the Greensboro Four altered the course of history.
"What they did that on that day in 1960, they helped change the trajectory of the nation," said Easley, who lived across the street in Hempstead from McNeil.
Easley said McNeil's defiance of the Jim Crow South's racist laws carry extra significance amid the Trump administration's push to disassemble diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the country.
"We have overcome so much, it is important to know who our heroes are," Easley said. "It's hard to lose heroes in this time."
Waylyn Hobbs Jr., mayor of Hempstead Village, said in an interview McNeil was a "living legend."
"We are grateful for how he paved the way for so many, when it came to the Civil Rights Movement, he stood up," Hobbs said, noting that he hoped McNeil's legacy would inspire the children at Joseph A. McNeil Elementary School in Hempstead. "The catalyst for them to speak truth to power, stand up for what's right, and to do the right thing."
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said in an interview that McNeil was an example of how "out of bad things, good things can come."
"It would've been very easy for General McNeil to say, 'I'm angry at the United States, I don't like the United States.' He tried to make the United States a better place," Blakeman said. "He was a shining example for all who came behind him, that you can put these things away, you can put the bitterness aside, and you can make something good out of something bad."
Kangisi McNeil said he strives to embody his grandfather's spirit every day.
"That flame in his heart has just sparked everybody else in my family to have that same exact same mentality, that same exact courage," he said. "The mission still needs to be carried forward."
Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
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