Arrests of Protesters Removed 64 Years After Historic Sit-In

27 October 2024

A judge signed a warrant just blocks from where the group was arrested.

On October 25, Simon Bouie and six others had their arrest records expunged, more than 60 years after they staged a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter in Columbia, South Carolina.

A judge signed an order just a few blocks away, the Associated Press reported. where the group was arrested.

Before leaving to join the protest, Bouie assured her mother that she wouldn’t get into trouble, and she kept that promise in mind as she and other activists sat at the Eckerd Pharmacy counter.

“We had the desire to fight for what was right and no one could turn us away. “We walked into that building with our heads held high and sat down,” Bouie told the AP.

Although South Carolina was not the birthplace of the sit-in during the Civil Rights Movement, that honor belongs to the Greensboro, North Carolina, Bouie, and his company’s sit-in helped change the law in South Carolina and more broadly in Jim. Crow South.

Of the seven people arrested during the two-day protest, only Bouie and Charles Barr survived to see their records expunged.

Five other men, David Carter, Johnny Clark, Richard Counts, Milton Greene, and Talmadge Neal, were represented by white roses at the table.

“It made me feel good that we were part of this movement in South Carolina that made it easier for everyone to get along a little better,” Barr told the AP.

According to University of South Carolina professor Bobby Donaldson, the five men who died without receiving justice cared about creating a better world than their freedom.

“They were victimized in 1960. Today they were proven right. A lawsuit was filed against them in 1960. They are praised today. They were convicted in 1960. They were exonerated today,” Donaldson said.

Although their convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court just days before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law, their arrests remained on record.

These men are heroes, according to Attorney Byron Gipson, who handled the paperwork investigating the arrests and obtaining the suspensions before the judge.

“These men stood bravely in the face of adversity, in the face of threats, in the face of death; they sat down bravely, quite openly. They did this because they wanted to ensure that the Constitution applied to all Americans,” Gipson said at the ceremony.

Judge Robert Hood, who signed the verdict, took the papers from Gipson and gave his own statement to the crowd of 150 people in the courtroom.

“These heroes stood up against oppression, often at great personal cost. They dared to dream of a world where equality was not a desire but a reality. Their unwavering commitment to justice is a source of hope and inspiration for us all, Judge Hood said.

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