Simon Bouie told his mother and grandmother in 1960 that he would not get into trouble. Then the Black Benedict College student sat at a whites-only lunch counter in South Carolina and was arrested.
Finally on Friday the arrest and details of six of his friends were deleted as a judge signed an order during a ceremony in a Columbia courthouse just a few blocks from where he sat at that segregated table some 64 years ago.
Bouie remembered that promise as he entered the Eckerd Drug Store. He knew that the governor at the time had warned African-American students not to become involved with “hot-headed agitators” and “confused lawyers” who insisted that all people were equal, regardless of the color of their skin.
“We had the desire to fight for what was right and no one could turn us around. We walked into the building with our heads held high and sat down,” Bouie said.
Sitting changed the world. Columbia was not the place where the first sit-in, an act of disobedience, took place. The movement began in Greensboro, North Carolina, and spread throughout the South in the early 1960s.
Several southern cities have held similar removal ceremonies in recent years, as the young people who risked arrest and marring their criminal records are now older men and women. U.S. Representative and former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn liked to tell the story of how he met his wife of almost sixty years old, Emily, in prison after they were both arrested during a protest.
Back then, black people would sometimes sit at an all-white lunch counter and refuse to leave. They were often arrested and then refused to post bail. The prisons became overcrowded. They were placed in chain gangs. There was pressure to say something and change the laws. And segregation was broken down slowly and sometimes violently.
Only two of the seven men arrested during the two days of protests in Columbia are still alive. On Friday, Bouie and Charles Barr both walked slowly through the Richland County courtroom with canes. The other five men – David Carter, Johnny Clark, Richard Counts, Milton Greene and Talmadge Neal – have since died and were therefore represented by white roses at another table at the front of the courtroom.
Barr recalled the fear that day as he sat in the back of a police car, unsure whether he would be taken to jail or somewhere else. He had heard stories. He left the state for a while because of the racial conflict. But then he came back.
“It made me feel good to be part of this movement that has made it easier for everyone in South Carolina to get along with each other,” Barr said.
Professor Bobby Donaldson of the University of South Carolina spoke on behalf of the five men who died. He said they were true Americans, who put the importance of the Constitution and equality above their own freedom to ensure a better life for the next generation.
“They became victims in 1960. Today they have been vindicated. They were prosecuted in 1960. Today they are praised. They were convicted in 1960. Today they have been acquitted,” Donaldson said.
The arrests and convictions of the seven men went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The judges announced their convictions just days before the verdict Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law. But the arrests remained on their records.
Attorney Byron Gipson handled the paperwork to investigate the arrests and get the deportation before a judge.
“These men stood bravely – sat bravely, frankly – in the face of adversity, threats and death,” Gipson said. “They did this because they wanted to ensure that the Constitution would apply to all Americans. ”
Gipson then walked the paperwork to Judge Robert Hood, who signed it to applause from the packed courtroom of about 150 people.
“These heroes stood up against oppression, often at great personal cost. They dared to dream of a world in which equality is not an ambition, but a reality. Their unwavering commitment to justice serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for us all,” said Hood.
The arrests did not stop the men from completing their studies and leading successful lives. But Bouie said there was one place he was reminded of.
“Whenever I got in trouble at home, my wife would tell me, ‘Now that you’re talking to me like that again, I’m going to Richland County Court.’ You have a business. And you’re in big trouble. I don’t want to hear another word,” Bouie said, laughing. “That went on for 53 years.”