‘Friendship Nine’ Civil Rights Activist Dies At 86, Surviving Members Remember Him As ‘Our Moses’

A founding member of the "Friendship Nine" passed away at age 86.

Thomas Gaither, the organizing member of the “Friendship Nine,” passed away on Dec. 23 in Pennsylvania at age 86.

Gaither’s son, Kenn Gaither, confirmed the news with the Herald Online. Gaither was the only member of the “Friendship Nine” who didn’t attend Friendship Junior College but spent a month in the York County jail after they were convicted of trespassing at an all-white lunch counter in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Jan. 31, 1961.

The nonviolent sit-in took place after months of marches by civil rights protesters in downtown Rock Hill, located about 25 miles south of Charlotte. The 10 men were arrested, convicted the following day, and sentenced to either 30 days in jail or a $100 fine. Nine of them chose jail to demonstrate their opposition to segregation.

The “Jail, No Bail” movement, led by the Friendship Nine, captured national attention and reignited civil rights protests across the South, which had begun the previous year in Greensboro, North Carolina. Gaither traveled to Rock Hill as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), where he mentored the Friendship students and chose to join them in jail as an act of solidarity for equal rights.

“The nonviolent protest movement was an attempt to give those who were for segregation a way out of the bias and prejudice that imprisoned them,” Gaither said in 2011. “We were not then, or ever, acting against whites. We were for equality for Black people. What we did had a major impact on how protesters, while staying nonviolent, could work for change. And change America did.”

Willie “Dub” Massey and David Williamson Jr. are the last two surviving members of the “Friendship Nine.” Williamson hailed Gaither as their “Moses” and a “hero.”

“We looked to Tom for wisdom, for guidance,” Williamson said. “He was our Moses.”

Williamson cites Gaither’s courage to stand with the Friendship students as crucial for the “Jail, No Bail” movement, which went on to be used elsewhere in the South.

“Tom Gaither was a leader,” Williamson said. “He wanted equality for everybody — period.”

Decades after the Friendship Nine’s protest, the group was honored in Rock Hill and across South Carolina. Rock Hill now features an official state historic marker along Main Street, outside the former McCrory’s lunch counter site, commemorating the Friendship Nine.

In January 2015, a York County judge vacated the convictions of all the men, including Gaither, during a court hearing in Rock Hill. At the hearing, 16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett, York County’s top prosecutor, issued an apology for the convictions, which had been based solely on the African American race of those arrested for seeking equal treatment. The site of the sit-in, now home to the Kounter restaurant on Main Street, displays a stool with Gaither’s name in honor of his role in the protest.