Civil Rights museum settles dispute over late power bills

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The nation’s largest utility is dropping a demand for an advance payment to cover the possibility of delinquent power bills from a museum that honours a historic lunch-counter sit-in.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission on Friday posted terms of a settlement between Duke Energy and the operators of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. The museum marks where four black college freshmen refused to leave the whites-only lunch counter in downtown Greensboro on Feb. 1, 1960, sparking the civil rights movement.

Duke Energy briefly turned off the museum’s power during Black History Month in February and demanded that the non-profit pay an $18,244 credit deposit or risk losing power. The non-profit now agrees that future delinquencies mean disconnection, late and reconnection fees and a two-month advance.