Rock Hill Mayor Echols invited to Idaho as civil rights speaker

Rock Hill Mayor Doug Echols will visit Idaho next week to discuss the city’s civil rights history, including a York County judge earlier this year vacating the sentences of the “Friendship Nine.”

Echols has been asked to serve as the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Banquet in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, hosted by the Kootenai County Task Force. Organizers say the task force has been instrumental in influencing state laws in Idaho that ban harassment and hate crimes.

Echols plans to speak about civil rights events in Rock Hill and the recent move by local officials to overturn the convictions of nine black men who were arrested in 1961 during a peaceful protest. The Rock Hill Friendship Nine is now widely known for starting the “Jail, No Bail” strategy during the civil rights movement.

The Friendship College students and a civil rights organizer were arrested and jailed for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in downtown Rock Hill.

In January, York County Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes presided over a hearing to overturn their convictions. He said then, “We cannot rewrite history but we can right history.”

Hayes – whose uncle originally sentenced the Friendship Nine in Rock Hill’s city court – wrote in his legal decision this year: “(The Friendship Nine) were prosecuted solely based on their race. ... Such prosecution is on its face unjust under any definition.”

Echols’ wife, Sylvia, also will travel to Idaho. She plans to hold a workshop in Coeur d’Alene next week to discuss early childhood education, literacy, and child safety issues. Sylvia Echols is a child advocate in York County.

This story was originally published April 10, 2015 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Rock Hill Mayor Echols invited to Idaho as civil rights speaker."