Just one day after the town of Rock Hill, S.C., celebrated the overturning of the convictions of the “Friendship Nine”—students who were arrested 54 years ago and sentenced to hard labor for sitting at the counter of a segregated diner—the kind of blatant racism of that bygone era tainted the progressive feel brought on by the celebration.
On a large black rock that sits outside South Pointe High School, vandals wrote, “Happy N**ger Month.” It was signed “KKK.”
The missive was crafted on Sunday, Feb. 1, the start of Black History Month.
“It was discovered yesterday morning, and since then, it’s been eradicated,” a school staffer told Raw Story. “People are still calling because it was posted. Whoever did it, took a picture.”
The community saw the image of six of the 10 arrested in ’61 (one was an organizer) spread across the lunch counter over the weekend, as they returned to McCrory’s lunch counter on Main Street in Rock Hill, just minutes from the vandalized high school.
When they were students seeking to integrate the establishment, they were pelted with raw eggs by whites in the community. Police arrested them and they were sentenced to 30 days of hard labor. The protest by the former Friendship College students ignited the “no jail, no bail” campaign that swept the South and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement.
All this time later, a judge vacated their conviction, after 54 years, saying their arrests were made on illegal segregation laws, and with a police escort, the surviving “Friendship Nine” returned to the scene of so much tumult, smiling and high-fiving each other.
On Saturday, they ate at the same counter from their youth, and the mayor and others deemed the occasion a symbol of how far the town has come.
Of course, the writing on the high school rock the next day indicates there remains room to grow.
