The birth of jail-no-bail and how it altered civil rights movement columbiadailyherald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from columbiadailyherald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article, which was published April 9, 2021.
In a cramped cell in a South Carolina prison camp, 22-year-old African American activist Thomas Gaither wrote, “I am presently in deep contemplation as to just what our nation and our particular region of the nation prizes most.”
It was Thursday, Feb. 23, 1961, and Gaither was serving a 30-day term of hard labor on a road gang for what police called “trespassing,” when he and students from Friendship Junior College staged a sit-in at a Rock Hill, South Carolina, lunch counter. The letter he was writing marked day 23.
A Rock Hill site earned national civil rights recognition. The city won t stop there.
Jul. 6 ROCK HILL Rock Hill
A growing list of the most prominent civil rights locations and landmarks in America just took a seat in Rock Hill.
The former McCrory s Five & Dime site on Main Street is now a part of the African American Civil Rights Network. That listing began in 2017 and is operated by the National Park Service. It includes almost 60 listings.
Gladys Robinson, chairwoman of the city African-American Cultural Resources Advisory Committee, said the designation is exciting and significant. The National Park Service, she said, is able to continue to promote research and history of important places.