Righting history

COEUR d'ALENE - Mayor Doug Echols, of Rock Hill, S.C., said the 1960s were tough times for America, the South and the community he serves.

"Segregation ruled the day," Echols told the 321 people gathered at the Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn. "But at the same time, the struggle for civil rights was underway."

Echols was the keynote speaker at the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations annual Human Rights Banquet on Monday night. The fifth-term Rock Hill mayor focused his remarks on his city's civil rights journey and a group of men who were known as the "Friendship 9."

In February of 1961, eight black college students from Rock Hill Friendship Junior College joined Thomas Gaither, from the Congress of Racial Equality, for a peaceful sit-in at a local lunch counter with a "Whites Only" policy. The group was arrested, charged, and convicted of trespassing and breach of peace.

Unlike other student sit-ins that occurred throughout the South during the civil rights movement, the members of the "Friendship 9" refused to pay their $100 fines and chose instead to serve a 30-day sentence of hard labor. Civil rights activists across the South adopted the groups slogan, "Jail, Not Bail."

"They did not set out to be heroes," Echols said. "Yet they sparked a major milestone in the civil rights movement, which gave Rock Hill a platform from which to launch a series of events through the years. They created a thread, if you will, from which we would carry on their core value - that all people were created equal and have equal rights."

On Jan. 28, 2015, Municipal Court Judge John Hayes presided over a hearing that eventually ruled the nine men were wrongfully accused in the incident. After vacating the sentences before a packed courtroom, Hayes said, "We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history."

"To our knowledge, no other community has taken these kinds of steps," Echols said. "The 'Friendship 9' event in 1961 was the platform from which our community began its struggle for racial justice. Their courage continues to inspire us today, and it will in the days to come."

After Echols concluded his remarks, awards were presented by KCTFHR president Christie Wood and Tony Stewart, KCTFHR secretary. The first award of the night, the "2014 Civil Rights Award," went to Sholeh Patrick, Coeur d'Alene Press columnist, and Bill Morlin, former Spokesman-Review journalist and reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"These two people are in the same field and they follow the same path, which is one of the pen being mightier than the sword," Stewart said.

The organization also honored Greta Gissel and Jody Hiltenbrand with its "Bill Wassmuth Memorial Volunteer of the Year Award," and gave the "NIC Speak Out Communications Club" its "North Idaho College Student Club of the Year" award.

All proceeds from the event went toward educational programs at the Human Rights Education Institute and NIC Minority Student Scholarships.