Sit-Ins, Pickets, & Protests, 1960
Rock Hill Goes First
February 1, 1960
Four students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sit at a segregated lunch counter at F.W. Woolworth in Greensboro, North Carolina. What are initially called “sit-downs” spread throughout North Carolina.
Hear Ezell Blair interviewed by Robert Penn Warren.
The Friendship Junior College students of Rock Hill, South Carolina, want to hold South Carolina’s first sit-in. They work with Rev. Cecil Augustus Ivory, president of the Local Committee for the Promotion of Human Rights and Rock Hill’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Rev. I. DeQuincy Newman, state field director for the NAACP; and James T. McCain, Southern field director for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). McCain uses socio-dramas to teach the students nonviolent direct action.
February 9, 1960
Newman meets with the students. Students organize the Friendly Student Civic Committee. Abe Plummer is elected president. Ivory and Plummer name Martin Leroy Johnson as second in command; John Wesley Moore, third; and Arthur Hamm Jr., fourth.
February 12, 1960
150 Friendship students march downtown. Around 11 a.m. some make it into Woolworth and J. G. McCrory’s. Plummer and classmates take all 23 seats at Woolworth, while Hamm protects those seated by walking behind them. Students occupy all 30 stools at McCrory’s. A mob grows outside the stores; someone throws an ammonia bomb into Good’s Drug Store. To protect the students police escort them back to campus.
See McCrory’s Five and Dime on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.
February 13, 1960
McCrory’s and Woolworth remove counter seats and post “no trespassing” signs.
February 16, 1960
A White Citizens’ Council meeting draws 125. Ivory takes Plummer, Hamm, and Charles Frederick McDew of South Carolina State to Durham, North Carolina, for a student coordinating meeting organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and CORE. Students decide to continue sit-ins despite arrests and violence.
February 23, 1960
McCrory’s and Woolworth reopen, and Friendship students return. At Woolworth six students duck under a rope barrier to sit; eventually, 100 crowd in. At McCrory’s students sit next to white customers and read. As each white customer leaves, employees remove the stool top. Both stores close at 1:45 p.m.
February 24, 1960
At Woolworth angry white youths and adults attack students attempting to sit or seated. Woolworth closes, then reopens at 2. Students crowd in and take all the seats. Woolworth closes at 3. At McCrory’s whites occupy all the seats and relinquish them only to each other. A mob chases a black teen; police take him into protective custody.
February 25, 1960
State Sen. L. Marion Gressette, who heads the Segregation Committee, speaks to 350 in Rock Hill. He favors store owners using trespass laws.
February 28, 1960
A bomb threat results in Friendship students shivering outside during a cold night.
February 29, 1960
700-900 attend a mass meeting at New Mt. Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ) to support and donate to the students’ sit-in movement.
March 7, 1960
A cross is burned in front of New Mt. Olivet during a meeting.
March 15, 1960
Students in Rock Hill, Columbia, and Orangeburg coordinate a day of protests. In Rock Hill students sit-in at Good’s lunch counter, are asked to leave, and do so. At the segregated city hall, they pray and sing and are arrested. At Greyhound and Trailways depots, they buy bus tickets, sit in whites-only waiting rooms, and are arrested. In all, 71 are arrested, including Hamm at city hall; Plummer at Trailways, and Johnson at Greyhound. The students are charged with breach of peace or trespass and bailed out by 11 p.m. at a cost of $1,455.
March 19, 1960
4 white ministers who belong to the biracial Rock Hill Council on Human Relations object to the arrests and are threatened with job loss.
March 22, 1960
Students attend a mass meeting to describe their protest and arrest experiences.
March 24, 1960
At their trials, all are convicted. Leroy Henry is tried first, on breach of peace. A discussion ensues regarding the singing at city hall; the arresting officer says the singers were in tune but too loud.
April 3, 1960
Teens with the NAACP Youth Council join protests at W.T. Grant, S.H. Kress & Co., and McCrory’s.
May 16, 1960
The South Carolina Legislature adds to its trespass law: Any person who, having entered into a place of business or on the premises of another person, firm, or corporation, and fails and refuses without good cause or good excuse to leave immediately upon being ordered or requested to do so by the person in possession, or his agents or representatives, shall on conviction be fined not more than $100.00 or be imprisoned for not more than thirty days.
June 7, 1960
Ivory and Hamm are arrested at McCrory’s; their arrest makes national news. Ivory, who uses a cane and a wheelchair because of a spinal injury, makes two purchases, then sits in his wheelchair next to Hamm, who takes a counter seat. They are charged with and convicted of trespass, despite Ivory pointing to his purchases as proof he is a customer and to his wheelchair as a reminder he asked for counter service but does not occupy a counter seat. They appeal their convictions.
June 17, 1960
Hamm leads children 10 to 17 years old into Woolworth for a sit-in.
October 1, 1960
A new Friendship CORE chapter, with participation by NAACP members, runs pickets through December at McCrory’s and Woolworth. Students are asked to leave but are not arrested.
November 10, 1960
Ivory dies from an infection due to pressure sores. His appeal of his arrest with Hamm ends with his death. However, Hamm’s appeal goes forward and, ultimately, serves to eliminate all pending convictions of sit-in participants.
Read City of Rock Hill v. Hamm, 241 S.C. 420 (1962).
And City of Rock Hill v. Hamm,128 S.E. 2d. 907 (S.C. 1962).
The South Carolina Supreme Court Decision: The policy of McCrory’s is not to serve Negroes at its lunch counter. A single offense of trespass occurred; the facts are not under dispute. The judgment of guilty is affirmed, $100 or 30 days in jail.
Read Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306 (1964).
Dec. 14, 1964
The Argument: Jack Greenberg, NAACP counsel, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that 3,000 pending state trial and appellate court appeals await outcome (only for sit-ins participants, not for protesters participating in parades or marches). Those convicted of breach of peace and trespass have demanded food service. The arrests and convictions support segregation. If a food place is open to the public without restriction then the food place must be covered by the Civil Rights Act, passed in 1964 while the Hamm appeal was pending. The Rock Hill manager of McCrory’s acknowledged he sells 3,000 items to customers and accepts Chinese, Indians, and Communists as customers. The 1964 Civil Rights Acts removes from states any power to continue with the convictions; the 14th Amendment has taken hold.
The U.S. Supreme Court Decision: Sit-in demonstrations cannot not be the subject of state or federal prosecutions. Federal prosecutions were ended by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. State prosecutions are thus ended by the Supremacy Clause. The 1964 Civil Rights Act is a means of enforcing protections already enshrined in the 14th Amendment.
“We hold that the convictions must be vacated and the prosecutions dismissed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination in places of public accommodation, and removes peaceful attempts to be served on an equal basis from the category of punishable activities. Although the conduct in the present cases occurred prior to enactment of the Act, the still-pending convictions are abated by its passage.”