Mayor tells city’s story to group in Idaho

Rock Hill Mayor Doug Echols’ trip to Idaho this week is a tribute to his accomplishments as mayor. But it also reflects positively on the efforts by the entire community to highlight the city’s efforts to combat racism and deal with its segregated past.

Echols is keynote speaker at the Human Rights Banquet in Coeur d’Alene, which is hosted by the Kootenai County Task Force. The task force has been instrumental in lobbying for laws to ban harassment and hate crimes in Idaho.

Much of Echols speech centers on the story of the Friendship Nine, the nine black college students arrested in 1961 for sitting at McCrory’s segregated lunch counter in downtown Rock Hill. They subsequently elected to serve out their time on a chain gang rather that opt for bail, spawning the rallying cry, “Jail, No Bail.”

The strategy was not only inspirational, it also had a practical side. Civil rights groups had been spending huge sums of money to pay bail for protesters, but the “Jail, No Bail” tactic both saved money and further highlighted the plight of blacks living in the segregated South at the time.

While the first sit-in at the Walgreen’s Drug Store in Greensboro, N.C., is better known than Rock Hill’s, all the sit-ins in 1960 and 1961 were part of a nonviolent campaign that eventually spread to 55 cities in 13 states and helped reignite the civil rights movement. As such, they all were notable for their contribution to the cause.

Echols also will tell listeners how that story still resonates today, resulting in the long-overdue hearing to overturn the convictions of the Friendship Nine 50 years after the sit-in. The mayor will tell how Judge John C. Hayes, whose uncle had originally sentenced the Friendship Nine, presided over the special hearing in January, which was attended by the surviving members of the Friendship Nine.

It is a story not only of the past but also the present, of contrition and the continuing commitment to fairness and equality for all.

While Idaho was far from the center of the civil rights movement, it has experienced its own history of Jim Crow, civil rights abuses and white supremacy. We suspect that Echols’ story about Rock Hill still will have relevance and will resonate with listeners in Coeur d’Alene.

Echols also will have the opportunity to tell about efforts that have occurred during his tenure to promote Rock Hill as a progressive city, such as the “No Room for Racism” campaign, historical markers at McCrory’s and Clinton College, and the new civil rights walkway to be constructed downtown.

Echols’ wife, Sylvia, also will travel to Idaho. As a child advocate for York County, she will hold a workshop in Coeur d’Alene to discuss early childhood education, literacy, and child safety issues.

We all can take pride in the fact that Rock Hill’s history can be inspirational to those in other parts of the nation and that Mayor Echols will help spread that story.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Mayor tells city’s story to group in Idaho."