ROCK HILL, S.C., Jan. 28 (UPI) -- A judge dismissed the convictions of the "Friendship 9" for a 1961 sit-in after a prosecutor in Rock Hill, S.C., said they were found guilty because they were black.
Kevin Brackett, 16th Circuit solicitor, spoke after Ernest A. Finney Jr., the lawyer who represented the men at their original trial, moved for dismissal. Brackett also apologized to the men on behalf of the state of South Carolina.
"The record is abundantly clear," Brackett said. "There's only one reason these men were arrested. There was only one reason that they were charged and convicted for trespassing, and that is because they were black. This could not happen today. It was wrong then. It was wrong today. These convictions, if they are allowed to stand, would be an offense to justice, and they must be vacated."
Finney, 83, who retired in 2000 after becoming the first black chief justice of the state Supreme Court since Reconstruction, had to be helped to his feet to speak.
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"These courageous and determined South Carolinians have shown by their conduct and their faith that the relief that they seek should be granted," he told Circuit Judge John C. Hayes III. "I move for the convictions entered in 1961 to be vacated."
Most of the original group were present, although one has died and another was unable to get to Rock Hill. About 500 spectators attended, half of them in an overflow room.
Brackett, who was born after 1961, quoted Martin Luther King on Tuesday when he told CNN why he wanted the convictions overturned: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."
King's daughter, Bernice, appearing at a news conference after the hearing, called the reversal "a victory for race relations in America."
Hayes is the nephew of the municipal judge who in 1961gave the men a choice of a $100 fine or 30 days on a chain gang at the York County Prison Farm. All but one chose jail.
The Friendship 9, who got their name from the college in Rock Hill most attended, decided to make their protest a year after students in Greensboro, N.C., pioneered the tactic of non-violent sit-ins at a Woolworth's lunch counter. They were arrested at McCrory's in Rock Hill when they refused orders from the employees and the manager to get up and leave the lunch counter.
The group pioneered the tactic of choosing jail over paying bail or fines. They believed their choice made a moral statement -- and also helped civil rights organizations that were running out of money for bail. .
"Try to understand that what I am doing is right," Clarence Graham wrote in a letter to his parents the night before the Jan. 31 protest. "It's not like going to jail for a crime like stealing, killing, etc., but we're going for the betterment of all colored people."
The nine are now honored with a monument in Rock Hill. While McCrory's is no longer there, the space is still a restaurant and the names of the men are on the seats they occupied.
Kimberly P. Johnson, a South Carolina writer, wrote a children's book about the Friendship 9, "No Fear for Freedom," and pushed to have the convictions overturned.
"In a sense, we get a do-over and that's going to be a wonderful message to send to the world that justice does find its way back," she said. "These ordinary men did something amazing and extraordinary."
