Charles Barr, 84, and Simon Bouie, 85, talk to reporters after having their records expunged at the Richland County Courthouse on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. They were among seven men arrested during sit-in demonstrations in 1960. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — In 1960, seven Columbia college students dared to challenge whites-only dining policies at local lunch counters. On Friday, their criminal records were finally cleared.
The expungements, approved with fanfare by Circuit Court Judge Robert Hood, could be a first for Columbia, according to researchers.
Prior expungements in South Carolina include for the “Friendship Nine” college students cleared in 2015 for arrests at a Rock Hill lunch counter in 1961. Prominent figures of the Civil Rights Movement cleared in other states include Martin Luther King, Jr., and Claudette Colvin, who was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a segregated Alabama bus.
“Who would think it would take 60 years for them to clear this up and for us to be recognized and to take our records away?” Charles Barr, one of the seven men cleared Friday, told reporters after the ceremony.
Simon Bouie greets people after his expungement at the Richland County Courthouse on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
The seven students of Allen and Benedict colleges, two historically Black schools located across from each other in downtown Columbia, were arrested for breach of peace and trespassing.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned their convictions in 1964, four years after their arrests. But the charges have remained on their criminal records.
“Here we are 60 years later, and these charges are on their records as if they are criminals,” said Solicitor Byron Gipson, the chief prosecutor for Richland and Kershaw counties.
The charges are a reminder of a time when Black residents couldn’t eat at a lunch counter without facing jail time, said Barr, of Silver Springs, Maryland; and Simon Bouie, of Columbia.
They’re the only two of the seven who lived long enough to see their names cleared.
Nameplates with white roses in front of them represented the other five men. Their families cheered as Hood signed the expungement papers.
“To know that just two of us remain alive to experience what we have today — I would have hoped that all of them could have been here,” Bouie said.
What happened
On March 14, 1960, Bouie, a student at Allen University, and Talmadge Neal, a student at Benedict College, sat down at a lunch booth inside Eckard’s Drug Store on Main Street.
“They wanted to be served as every other white patron was served,” Gipson said.
Bouie, president of the university’s Student Movement Association, had seen similar demonstrations across the country and started thinking, “What can we do?” he told reporters Friday.
About 10 days before the sit-in, Bouie and other students wrote an open letter saying they did not want to proceed with demonstrations. They wouldn’t need to if provided the same rights as other citizens.
“We as students fully understand that freedom has a price tag,” Bouie wrote in the letter, which was read by University of South Carolina history professor Bobby Donaldson.
“Those of us who wish to be free are willing to suffer and pay the price,” the letter continued.
Gov. Ernest Hollings warned against the segregation protests and announced that any students who conducted a sit-in would be arrested. Students decided to demonstrate.
Charles Barr speaks to reporters at the Richland County Courthouse on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
Bouie and Neal had promised their families they wouldn’t get involved.
So, when Bouie and Neal sat down, knowing they were likely to be arrested, Bouie told his friend, “I think we’re in trouble now,” he recounted.
Police arrested the two and charged them with breaching the peace and trespassing. The officers also charged Bouie with resisting arrest, though the state Supreme Court later dismissed that charge for lack of evidence.
The next day, another five students — Barr, David Carter, Johnny Clark, Richard Counts and Milton Greene — sat at the lunch counter inside Taylor Street Pharmacy.
Having heard of the sit-in the day before, the store manager had asked police officers to stay in case of a similar demonstration at his store, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion.
The five were arrested and charged with the same crimes. As officers put the men into the back of the police van, Barr realized he didn’t know where they were going.
“You don’t know how things were in 1960, and how you could disappear and nobody would know what happened to you,” Barr said. “We were young, and anything could happen, so we were a little afraid.”
Ten days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned their convictions, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their convictions for breaching the peace were legally impossible, justices said, since the men were sitting peacefully.
Expungements
Orton Bellamy, a former member of the state’s parole board, first heard about the cases about a year ago while talking to University of South Carolina researchers. Because the nation’s highest court had overturned the men’s convictions, they were eligible for expungement.
But none of the men had asked to have their records cleared, so the issue never came to light, he said.
The state parole board looked into the cases, with the help of Donaldson, who leads USC’s Center for Civil Rights History and Research. About five months ago, they approached Gipson’s office to officially bring the expungements to court.
Beyond clearing the criminal charges, Friday’s ceremony was an acknowledgement that what happened to those men was wrong. It served as a recognition their bravery in standing up for their rights and a reflection on how far the state had come since then, Donaldson said.
“It is a public acknowledgement of the rightful place that these men hold in our history,” he said. “It is a celebration of their achievement. It is a moment to acknowledge that in 1960 they were victimized. Today, they are vindicated.”
The men sat down in those pharmacies because “we were on a mission to get served and get recognized as American citizens in America in 1960,” Barr said.
At the time, they rode on the back of the bus to get downtown. At movie theaters, they could sit in the balcony only. They couldn’t enroll in the University of South Carolina for their master’s degrees.
But in the years after their conviction, Bouie and Barr began to see things change. In 1963, three Black students enrolled at USC for the first time since the 1800s. Black people could sit down and eat in the same restaurants where Bouie and Barr had been arrested.
“It made me feel good that we were a part of the movement that happened that helped to make it easier for everyone to get along a bit better in South Carolina,” Barr said.
Gipson, who is Black, credited the risk the seven students and others across the country took with paving the way for him to become a solicitor.
“I could not be here without the work that these men did,” Gipson said. “I couldn’t stand in front of this court without the work these men did. I couldn’t be making this ask without that work.”
Donaldson and Bellamy said they hope to see records for other Civil Rights activists cleared.
That could include expunging the convictions of 187 Black students arrested in 1961 for protesting segregation in front of the Statehouse. The case was similar in that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the students’ convictions, but their records were never cleared, Donaldson said.
Barr was arrested again during that protest. As was Simon Bouie’s wife, Willie Bouie, Donaldson said.