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'Friendship Nine' to be cleared of civil rights sit-in crimes
Source: Reuters
'Friendship Nine' to be cleared of civil rights sit-in crimes
BY COLLEEN JENKINS
ROCK HILL, S.C. Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:33am EST
(Reuters) - Fifty-four years after nine young black men became the first U.S. civil rights protesters to serve jail time for sitting at an all-white lunch counter, surviving members of the group will return to a South Carolina courtroom this month to be exonerated of their crimes.
Their "jail, no bail" strategy helped galvanize the fight against racial inequality in the South and became a model for other protesters. But the "Friendship Nine," as the men became known, endured personal hardships for taking the bold stand.
They say the push to clear their names so long after the Jan. 31, 1961, sit-in in Rock Hill will have little effect on their lives. Still, they welcome the message it sends at a time of sharpened focus on U.S. race relations following white police killings of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York.
"For the generations that are here now and for the future, it shows that the country was wrong," said one of the men, Willie McCleod, 72.
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BY COLLEEN JENKINS
ROCK HILL, S.C. Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:33am EST
(Reuters) - Fifty-four years after nine young black men became the first U.S. civil rights protesters to serve jail time for sitting at an all-white lunch counter, surviving members of the group will return to a South Carolina courtroom this month to be exonerated of their crimes.
Their "jail, no bail" strategy helped galvanize the fight against racial inequality in the South and became a model for other protesters. But the "Friendship Nine," as the men became known, endured personal hardships for taking the bold stand.
They say the push to clear their names so long after the Jan. 31, 1961, sit-in in Rock Hill will have little effect on their lives. Still, they welcome the message it sends at a time of sharpened focus on U.S. race relations following white police killings of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York.
"For the generations that are here now and for the future, it shows that the country was wrong," said one of the men, Willie McCleod, 72.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/18/us-usa-south-carolina-friendship-nine-idUSKBN0KR0F720150118
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
that better late than never BS either....that POC even had to fight for rights to be recognized as human and to vote in a system that hated them for being POC. What hypocrisy. Still fighting 54 years later....
