A Rock Hill site earned national civil rights recognition. The city won’t stop there.
A growing list of the most prominent civil rights locations and landmarks in America just took a seat in Rock Hill.
The former McCrory’s Five & Dime site on Main Street is now a part of the African American Civil Rights Network. That listing began in 2017 and is operated by the National Park Service. It includes almost 60 listings.
Gladys Robinson, chairwoman of the city African-American Cultural Resources Advisory Committee, said the designation is exciting and significant. The National Park Service, she said, is able to continue to promote research and history of important places.
“There’s very little that people know about the significance,” Robinson said of the McCrory’s site. ”People just need to be made aware of how significant the civil rights movement was in Rock Hill.”
The McCrory’s site is now the restaurant Kounter.
Before that, it was McCrory’s from 1937 to 1997. The 135 E. Main St. building is best known for what happened in 1961, when Black college students were arrested there after sitting at a segregated lunch counter.
‘Jail, No Bail’ protest
The new civil rights network listing offers details. In February 1960, the same month students in North Carolina held a sit-in at a Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth’s store, students at the Friendship Junior College in Rock Hill began protests. About 100 students from the historically Black school held demonstrations at four locations, including the local Woolworth’s and McCrory’s.
At the time, Black people weren’t allowed to sit at lunch counters but instead had to use takeout service from the back of the restaurant. Business closed when the demonstrations began, and reopened a day later but without lunch counter service for two weeks. When lunch counters reopened, demonstrations continued. Sit-ins continued for almost a year.
On Jan. 31, 1961 there were 18 students marching and carrying signs outside McCrory’s. A Congress of Racial Equality leader and nine students entered the store and took seats at the lunch counter. They were arrested and tried the next day on trespassing charges. Each person arrested could pay a $100 fine or serve 30 days on the York County Prison Farm.
The students became known as the “Friendship Nine” and inspired the “Jail, No Bail” movement of serving sentences in solidarity. Further demonstrations and arrests followed in Rock Hill ahead of the 1964 passage of the federal Civil Rights Act that desegregated stores like McCrory’s along with businesses, restaurants and public facilities.
Rock Hill civil rights legacy
When chef Rob Masone opened Kounter late last year, the name was an ode to the well-known lunch counter there. The counter, stools and footrails were preserved in 2007 by a local group of citizens, the city and county Culture and Heritage Museum. Masone then restored the counter.
“We’ve exposed that to its original form,” Masone said just ahead of opening. “It’s front and center.”
Charges against the Friendship Nine were vacated from their records in 2015. The site of their demonstration, though, is on record with prominent civil rights sites from across the country. Civil Rights Network sites include the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, the Brown vs. Board of Education National Histric Site and the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, among others. Numerous former homes of civil rights leaders are on the list.
South Carolina has 10 sites listed, about 18% of the total to date. Joining the McCrory’s building are the All Star Bowling Lane in Orangeburg, Charlie’s Place in Myrtle Beach, the Harden Street Substation, Simkins House and Waverly Historic District in Columbia, the St. George Rosenwald School in Dorchester County and both the Mosquito Beach Historic District and the Mother Emanuel AME Zion Church in Charleston.
Also included is the South Carolina Equalization Schools website.
There have been efforts in recent years to recognize civil rights and equality efforts in Rock Hill beyond the sit-in site. Freedom Walkway aims to recognize heroes of justice and equality. Prior to COVID-19, the city and York County reached an agreement to set up a position to explore the idea of an African-American Cultural Center downtown.
Mayor John Gettys and Robinson say COVID-19 interrupted efforts but the cultural center remains a priority.
“We’ve got a committee,” Gettys said. “We’re working hard. There’s been some progress and some setbacks, because of COVID.”
Cultural center progress was just beginning to gain momentum when virus closures hit, Robinson said.
“The pandemic slowed us down a bit, but we’re still very much on task for that,” she said. “It’s still very much a part of our plans for the future of Rock Hill.”
Gettys and Robinson say work is being done now on several efforts to connect various stories of Rock Hill’s past, related to civil rights and equality. The McCrory’s site is part of it. Gettys said the city approached the property owner and tenant there, who wholeheartedly agreed to work on the various documentation and other efforts needed to make the national listing registry.
“It’s the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people,” Gettys said. “It’s another element to make sure our history is preserved, and we learn from it.”
This story was originally published July 6, 2021 at 3:27 PM with the headline "A Rock Hill site earned national civil rights recognition. The city won’t stop there.."
