'Most times, John Hardin called me Mr. Williamson'

Tuesday night, long after dark, around 9:30 p.m., a solitary man set up the cones to block off all the parking that would be needed for the funeral the next day.

The funeral was for former Rock Hill Mayor John Hardin. The solitary man already had polished, and vacuumed, and scrubbed St. John's United Methodist Church to prepare it for the funeral. The brass shone like mirrors, including on the plaque that shows deceased members and has a blank brass spot where Hardin's name will go.

Hardin, loved and respected, from one of Rock Hill's leading social, political and business families, always the funniest guy in any room to boot, was sure to draw a crowd.

"Someone with his status, I just knew it would be filled and I wanted to be ready," said Johnny Williamson, the sexton at the church. As sexton, Williamson is the church officer, the employee, in charge of maintenance of the grounds. He's worked at St. John's for 18 years. He is 66 years old.

"I wanted the church to be just right. So long I knew Mayor Hardin. Many times Mr. Hardin would come in the church when I came early for the service before going to my own church - I am a Catholic -and he would always talk to me. He was a funny man, a storyteller. Nobody joked better. I know his family. All of them are great. A few times he called me 'Johnny,' and said, 'I see you are at your station' when I was helping get people in to their seats.

"But most times, John Hardin called me 'Mr. Williamson.' "

Johnny Williamson comes from an old Rock Hill family, too. Except his family owned no car and buggy plants like the Hardins did generations ago to amass a fortune. The Williamsons garnered no votes in elections, met no presidents like John Hardin did as a bank officer, so well known and respected by so many in politics and finance. Johnny Williamson's father was a painter for the school district. Johnny had a bunch of brothers and sisters. Johnny and his older brother, David, growing up in the 1950s when Hardin was a businessman, they shined shoes at the shops in downtown.

"As a child I shined Mayor Hardin's shoes," said David Williamson, whose nickname is "Scoop." "We tried to make a dollar in those days."

When Johnny was in high school, in 1960, his brother Scoop graduated and enrolled at Rock Hill's Friendship Junior College. That was one of the two small city colleges for black students. The Williamsons, back in 1960 and 1961, were from "black" Rock Hill. The city was segregated.

At that time John Hardin was the mayor of Rock Hill. Hardin was white. All the politicians were white, the police were white, the businesses almost all white except a stretch of black businesses west of downtown.

"But John Hardin didn't bring segregation, he was born into segregation just like I was," said Johnny Williamson. "Segregation wasn't the mayor's fault. He didn't start it. He found it here, same as me. That was the way it was. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it fair. But that is what it was, and finally, black people had enough of it."

That segregation meant bus stations and lunch counters were segregated. After a year of protests, on Jan. 31, 1961, Friendship student David Williamson and other students sat down at McCrorey's lunch counter and asked to be served. They were arrested. They served 30 days in jail rather than post bail. "The Friendship Nine" and "Jail, no Bail" became forever part of the current of righteousness that later rid America of segregation.

But before segregation died, in some places around the South, black student protesters were beaten. Not in Rock Hill, though.

"A lot of places those protesters were beaten up, but not my brother David and not the others here, and I think the mayor helped protect them, make sure they were not harmed," Johnny Williamson said.

Hardin was voted out of office in 1963 after a five-year run when another soon-to-be legendary mayor, David Lyle, defeated Hardin in the Democratic primary. Hardin went back into business and Johnny Williamson stayed fixing shoes. He did it so well and for so long he bought that Baker Shoe Service and ran it for years. Only later in life, after downtown business dropped and the shoe business wasn't what it used to be, did Williamson take the job running the grounds at St. John's church.

The years rolled on and Hardin got old. Williamson, nicknamed "Wagon Wheel" since his days at segregated Emmett Scott High School when his sports shoes were too big and the front of the sneakers rolled around like wagon wheels, got old, too.

"I'm just 'Wagon' now because the wheels just about have fallen off," Johnny Williamson said.

Through all the years of shoes and church, Johnny Williamson and John Hardin shook hands many times. Hardin, who had shaken hands with presidents, treated Williamson as an equal, Williamson said.

"Mayor Hardin was not an authority figure, he was respected and he respected people in return," Williamson said. "I was proud to help get the church ready for his funeral. It is my job, but it was more than that. I liked him and I am sure he liked me. He respected me. He was my friend."

This story was originally published May 16, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "'Most times, John Hardin called me Mr. Williamson'."