Arrested for Sit-In, 'Friendship 9' Convictions To Be Overturned [View all]
Source: NBC News
Rock Hill, S.C. — Fifty-four years after they were arrested and sentenced to hard labor for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in South Carolina, a group of African-American student protesters known as the "Friendship Nine" will have their convictions overturned Wednesday.
"What these men did wasn't wrong, in fact it was right. And what they did wasn't illegal, it was an act of principled courage," said Kevin Brackett, the York and Union County Solicitor who has agreed to have the guilty verdicts vacated.
All eight surviving members of the "Friendship Nine" are invited to attend the morning hearing in a municipal courtroom in Rock Hill, S.C.
Presiding over the session, and expected to clear the men's records, will be Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes III, who is the nephew of the judge who sentenced the "Friendship Nine" to jail in 1961.
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/arrested-sit-friendship-9-convictions-be-overturned-n294146
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