In a packed, standing-room-only South Carolina courtroom, seven black men in their 70s stood - or raised their hands - as their names were called and the dockets from their Feb. 1, 1961 convictions recited: "Offense, Trespassing; Disposition, guilty; Sentence, $100 or 30 days hard labor. Conditions, sent to chain gang." Fifty-four years after those men, most of them students at Rock Hill's Friendship College, served their 30 days for peacefully sitting down at a segregated lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, their convictions were overturned Wednesday morning to a standing ovation. South Carolina's 16th Circuit solicitor, Kevin Brackett, offered the still-living members of...
- 1/28/2015
- by Sandra Sobieraj Westfall
- PEOPLE.com
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