Robert McCullough, civil rights organizer

18 year-old Robert McCullough.

On Aug. 7, Robert Louis McCullough died at the age of 64 in Rock Hill, S.C., where as an African-American student organizer during the 1960s, he helped to make history in a landmark struggle against racism.

McCullough was born and raised in Rock Hill, a textile manufacturing center near Charlotte. In 1957, two years after the historic Montgomery bus boycott, the African-American community carried out the Rock Hill bus boycott, which shut down that city’s segregated bus company.

Inspired by the growing movement against racist Jim Crow laws and practices in the South, African-American students held a historic sit-in at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. on February 1, 1960, followed by six months of protests which won desegregated lunch counters there.

The Greensboro actions set off demonstrations all over the South, including in Rock Hill, where Black students marched for a year along that city’s Main Street.

Eleven days after the ground-breaking Greensboro action, 100 African-American youth, mainly students at Friendship Junior College, held the first South Carolina sit-ins at Rock Hill’s Woolworth’s and McCrory’s lunch counters, followed by a year-long campaign there.

McCullough helped to organize a key protest in Rock Hill. His fellow student participants appointed him as their leader. As his fellow activist David Williamson explained, “He did all the detail work and made sure everything was in place.”

On January 31, 1961, 18-year-old McCullough, along with eight other African-American students from Friend ship and one civil rights organizer, sat in at the “whites-only” lunch counter at McCrory’s. They demanded service, which they were denied.

Arrested and tried on the official charges of “trespassing” and “breach of peace,” these courageous young men were guilty only of seeking justice and an end to racist discrimination.

But these activists brought a new tactic to this struggle. They pledged among themselves to go to jail rather than pay fines or bail, which had been the practice of previous sit-in protestors. When faced with paying a $100 fine each or 30-day sentences at the York County Prison Farm with forced labor on a chain gang, nine of them went to prison. That they faced imprisonment or fines for fighting for justice was the real crime.

Racist prison officials saw to it that McCullough and seven of his fellow activists served some time in solitary confinement, where they subsisted on bread and water. The jailers were furious that they refused orders to stop singing civil rights songs while daily loading 36 truckloads of dirt on the roadside chain gang.

“This was the first time anyone had served full sentences in the sit-in movement,” commented historian Howard Zinn.

The struggle of the Friendship Nine proved to be a vital part of the civil rights movement and inspired many youth.

After their jailing, four Student Nonviolent Coordi nating Committee (SNCC) organizers went to Rock Hill to be arrested in solidarity with them. They sat in at McCrory’s, were arrested and imprisoned. Then 100 activists went to jail in other cities, after similar anti-racist protests.

The “Jail, No Bail” stand taken by the Friendship Nine “made electrifying news” within the civil rights movement, wrote Taylor Branch in “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63.” Besides putting political pressure on the racist power structure, it put financial pressure on them as well. Branch explains that this tactic “obligated the white authorities to pay for [protesters’] jail space and food.”

Also significant was the press coverage, particularly in the Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper, and the mass support mobilized for the Friendship Nine. The African-American community organized big, rousing meetings. Picketers lined the street outside McCrory’s. SNCC mobilized mass protests bringing African-American students from other cities. Motorcades drove to the prison farm. Protesters even went to Washington, D.C. Picketing continued in Rock Hill for a month after the Nine were released.

Robert Louis McCullough, whom fellow activists described as “our teacher” and called “our general” because of his leadership and strategic skills, left a legacy of struggle and courage. Upon his death, they recalled that he said to them while planning their bold action in 1961, that they were doing it “for all of humanity.” They also recollected that at a recent Friendship Nine reunion he said to them, “If we had to do it again, we’d do it again.”

The monumental civil rights struggle was marked by great courage, boldness, organization, and untold sacrifices by many. The Friendship Nine were a vital part of that history.

Sources for this article include Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Timeline at www.crmvet.org.