|
 A judge is expected to vacate the 54-year-old trespassing
convictions of the "Friendship Nine," a group of mostly students at
the now-closed Friendship College who agreed to risk arrest by
sitting at the McCrory's five-and-dime store lunch counter in Rock
Hill on Jan. 31, 1961.
Hauled to jail and quickly found guilty, they became the first U.S.
civil rights protesters to opt to serve jail time for sitting at an
all-white lunch counter, helping launch the "jail, no bail" strategy
that became a model for other activists.
"It breathed new life into the sit-in movement," said Adolphus Belk
Jr., director of the African-American studies program at Winthrop
University in Rock Hill.
 The surviving members of the group will again be represented by
Ernest Finney Jr., a civil rights defense lawyer who went on to
become chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court before
retiring in 2000.
Finney's motion, which is backed by local prosecutor Kevin Brackett,
argues the trespassing convictions would not have occurred under
current views on race and equality.
"Allowing these convictions to stand today would be equally
abhorrent," said the motion filed on Monday.
[to top of second column] |
The group's records will still reflect their arrests but will no
longer show they were guilty of a crime.
David Williamson, James Wells, Willie McCleod, Willie Thomas "Dub"
Massey, Clarence Graham, John Gaines, Thomas Gaither, Mack Workman
and Robert McCullough all served 30-day sentences at the county
prison farm. In recent interviews, several of the men said the
burdens of a criminal record lasted far longer.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem; Editing by Eric
Walsh)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
