Page 114 →Junior and High School Student Voices

Junior and high school students organized and conducted boycotts, sit-ins, pickets, and other forms of protests during the civil rights movement. The Library of Congress’s Civil Rights History Project has several oral histories of youths from Alabama, Oklahoma, and Virginia who took part in the movement. There is one account from South Carolina, that of Cleveland Sellers, organizer of an NAACP youth chapter in Denmark.⁴ The Kress demonstrations in Florence are significant, however, because they represent the earliest involvement of youths anywhere in the South. Despite the available primary sources, few scholars have written about youth activists. Jon Hale is one historian who recognizes youth involvement. He indicates that student involvement was not limited to college campuses, but the literature on the civil rights movement largely overlooks high school student involvement.⁵ Similarly, Aldon Morris analyzes youth involvement during the sit-in movement in South Carolina and other US cities. Works by Christopher W. Schmidt and William C. Hine reference youth efforts in Rock Hill and Orangeburg, South Carolina.⁶ Although these events made national news, the demonstrations in Florence did not. Consequently, scholars have omitted them from even the most recent studies of the civil rights movement in South Carolina.⁷

It was not until 2011 that research on the Florence demonstrations began in earnest. Stephen Motte, curator of Interpretation and Collections at the Florence County Museum, carried out this research when creating a civil rights movement exhibit in the museum. His efforts also led to a commemorative plaque placed in front of the former Kress store location honoring the Page 116 →students. Motte studied the riot in 1942, Mitchell’s and Sharper’s arrest in 1956, the 1960 demonstrations, and the 1969 incident at the Little Farmer’s Market. His research involved conversations with Florence residents who recollected these incidents and the city’s racial dynamics. He also accessed newspaper articles, NAACP documents, police and court records, and documents referencing integration in Florence schools.⁸ This initial research has opened the doors for further in-depth study of the civil rights movement and past race relations in Florence.

Our research includes recently recorded interviews with Wilson Junior High and WHS students. These oral histories provide interpretations of the 1960 Kress demonstrations, race relations in Florence, and civil rights demonstrations throughout the country. Our interview with student leader John Miller describes the formation of the NAACP youth branch, the planning and carrying out of the Kress demonstrations, the student’s jail and court experiences, and the demonstration’s effect on the community.⁹ Similarly, Ann Nelson recounts her experiences as the youngest participant and student arrested. Nelson spoke of the events on March 4, the arrests and jail experience, and segregation in Florence compared with other cities throughout the country.¹⁰ In addition to Miller’s and Nelson’s accounts, our interview with Allie Brooks, a Florence native and student at Wilson Junior High School in 1960, offers an understanding of race relations, segregation, and the media’s effect on white communities throughout the civil rights movement.¹¹ Likewise, in the Francis Marion University African American Faculty and Staff Coalition Cultural Conversations Series, Florence native Joseph Heyward presents the changing race relations, the 1960 Kress demonstrations, the Community Relations Committee in Florence founded in 1963, and the 1969 incident at the Little Farmer’s Market.¹² Although Brooks and Heyward did not participate in the 1960 demonstrations, their insights are instrumental in contextualizing the Kress demonstrations and understanding race relations in Florence.

Oral histories are invaluable to studying and understanding youth involvement in the civil rights movement. They provide direct accounts of segregation, changing race relations, and the changing dynamics in Florence. Moreover, they provide detailed descriptions of the activists’ goals and experiences. These accounts add to the historical record and explain both race relations and the impact of youth activists. In addition to oral accounts, primary documents also offer information regarding racial incidents and the media’s portrayal of those incidents. Multiple US and South Carolina Supreme Court cases offer legal documentation and decisions Page 117 →regarding racial matters. The Florence Morning News and The State reported on KKK activities in South Carolina, the 1942 riot, Mitchell and Sharper’s arrests in 1956, the 1960 events at Kress, the 1969 Little Farmer’s Market incident, and the Community Relations Committee.

The oppression and unjust treatment of Blacks in the United States dates to the country’s founding, and Florence provides evidence of this inequity. Slavery was prevalent in South Carolina for centuries, and many enslaved people worked on Florence plantations, including the Gregg Plantation, the current location of Francis Marion University’s main campus. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment, the formerly enslaved people continued to work the land as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. During the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877), there was progress toward equality for Black people. For example, the Pee Dee region sent the country’s first Black congressman, Joseph H. Rainey of Georgetown, to Washington in 1870.¹³ Nevertheless, racial discrimination, segregation, and oppression continued throughout the North and South.

The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson US Supreme Court ruling allowed segregation if the racially separated facilities were considered to be of equal quality.¹⁴ Florence, along with other cities, strongly enforced segregation. Railroad tracks separated the Black businesses on North Dargan Street from the white businesses on South Dargan Street.¹⁵ Despite the US Supreme Court ruling, the facilities were never equal, and racial inequality is evident when studying segregated facilities. Customary segregation measures included “whites-only” lunch counters, doors, bathrooms, water fountains, schools, libraries, seating areas, parks, tennis courts, and swimming pools. When Black people disregarded the segregation, they faced consequences imposed by white community members, such as arrest or losing their jobs.¹⁶ A pernicious dynamic developed in these communities. White civic leaders and business owners built enticing facilities and then punished Black people who wanted to use them.¹⁷ Segregated facilities disadvantaged Black Americans and restrained them from opportunities widely accessible to the white community. African Americans violated segregation codes to overcome inequities to access public amenities, such as lunch counters and recreation areas.

Segregation had a significant impact on African-American education. Although there was an increase in the number of Black high schools in South Carolina following Briggs v. Elliott, from eighty in 1951 to one hundred Page 118 →forty-five in 1957, school districts did not spend equal amounts of money on supplies for Black students.¹⁸ For instance, Florence County spent twice as much on white high school libraries, even though there were not twice as many white high school students.¹⁹ Furthermore, instead of supplying the school with funds to buy school books, the Florence school district provided WHS’s Black students with second-hand school books from McClenaghan High School, a white high school. Additionally, before 1962, many Black students had to walk to school because the buses only transported Black students who lived outside city limits and white students.²⁰

In addition to legal segregation practices, the KKK began demonstrations in the area during the 1920s. On January 31, 1924, seven hundred Klansmen performed a “meeting of the Pee Dee Klansmen” march in Florence. The following year, Klansmen received an invitation to the Pee Dee Fair to host the KKK Conclave.²¹ Expected in attendance were over fifteen thousand Klansmen, including Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard of the KKK. The weather prevented the event from happening, so the Klansmen attended the fair’s pageant to shoot fireworks during the Reconstruction Era scene. The Klan attended the event dressed in robes and riding horses. They intended to intimidate and instill fear in the Black community. However, the Florence Morning News portrayed the robes and horses as stimulating interest in the pageant.²² One month after the pageant, Klansmen left threats and burning crosses on two doors along North Dargan Street.²³ The Klan also made efforts to ally with law enforcement so vigilante Klansmen could report certain crimes in the city. Other Klan marches occurred in Florence during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. Their demonstrations were in full force as late as May of 1978, and the Klan attempted to perform rallies in 2010.²⁴ The KKK’s activities prove that racial tensions continued throughout the area, and white supremacists perpetually sought to taunt Black Americans in Florence.

During World War II, Florence and other cities faced riots over racial discrimination.²⁵ In 1942, the army stationed service members in Florence while utilizing the airport for the Florence Army Airfield base.²⁶ On November 7, 1942, Florence police responded to a call about a fight. When one Black soldier reportedly resisted arrest, a riot broke out along North Dargan Street. The unrest involved as many as fifteen hundred participants, including two hundred service members. The Sheriff’s office, fire department, highway patrol, and military police aided in restoring peace. They deployed tear gas on the crowd. Multiple civilians and soldiers suffered injuries, and the police arrested over twenty-five rioters.²⁷ The following day, officers supposedly Page 119 →recognized two Black soldiers, Charles Williams and Lando Guin, and arrested them for their involvement the previous night.²⁸ After the war, individuals and organizations like the NAACP worked to end racial discrimination throughout the South.

At the Florence Atlantic Coast Line train station in February of 1956, police arrested Clarence M. Mitchell, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, and Rev. Sharper of Sumter for attempting to enter a “whites-only” waiting room.²⁹ However, there was no sign indicating that it was a white waiting room. In fact, in January of that year, the station took the signs down because the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered their removal. Patrolman Bruce Buffkin and three other officers arrested Mitchell and Sharper for disorderly conduct. Assuming that the charges would not hold up, Buffkin changed the charges to “interfering with a police officer” before the trial. The following day, Judge Wylie H. Caldwell heard the case.³⁰ Attorneys William W. Bennett, Elliott D. Turnage, and Lincoln C. Jenkins Jr. represented Mitchell and Sharper.³¹ Judge Caldwell requested the dismissal of the charges because they were not sufficient for convictions, and the court dismissed the charges.

Two Florence Federal Bureau of Investigation agents investigated the incident to determine whether the arrests violated any civil rights laws. Chief of Police Julian Price was a director of Florence’s WCC.³² WCCs began in Indianola, Mississippi, after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. They quickly spread from Mississippi into Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina, fighting against the integration of public spaces.³³ Florence’s WCC published an advertisement in the Florence Morning News in February 1956, only a few weeks before the incident with Mitchell and Sharper. The recruiting advertisement proudly stated, “Maybe your community has had no racial problems! This may be true; however, you may not have a fire, yet you maintain a fire department…. The Citizen’s Council is the South’s answer to the mongrelizers. We will not be integrated! We are proud of our white blood and our white heritage of sixty centuries. If we are bigoted, prejudiced, un-American, etc., so were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other illustrious forebearers who believe in segregation.”³⁴ Chief Price’s membership suggests that there may have been racial prejudices within the police force. The arrests generated so much attention in Florence that community members filled the courtroom in support of Mitchell and Sharper. The community viewed the incident’s outcome as the first big win for desegregation in Florence, and local interest in the NAACP increased.

The demonstrations carried out by the WHS students and Florence NAACP youth branch were the first organized protests in Florence. Before the Kress protests, the 1942 riot on North Dargan Street was the only demonstration in Florence. Mitchell’s arrest in 1956 captured the attention of community members and involvement increased in the NAACP. Nevertheless, neither of these incidents was planned, and people were still hesitant to protest out of the fear of repercussions from white supremacist groups. Possible ramifications for participating in the Civil Rights Movement in the South included job loss, arrest, harassment, torture, and even murder at the hands of whites.³⁵ These consequences limited early involvement in the civil rights movement. However, by 1960, things were ramping up in the civil rights movement throughout the Southern states, and the sit-in movement was getting underway.

John Miller, a Florence native, was the first vice president of the Florence NAACP youth branch and the lead organizer of the Kress demonstrations. Three WHS students—Miller, Marilyn Miller (John Miller’s sister), and Cecil Gunter, neighbor and friend of the Millers—attended an NAACP conference held in Greenville, South Carolina, in late December 1959. Reverend Sharper, state president of the NAACP and pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, brought the three WHS students to the conference. The South Carolina NAACP adult branches, along with youths throughout the state, attended the conference. The conference’s focus was to train the youth how to organize youth branches and carry out sit-ins and protests. The youths learned the correct way to conduct nonviolent protests and to refrain from doing things such as yelling.³⁶

Shortly after the students returned to Florence, they began to establish a youth branch, and many students were interested in joining. Rev. Edward Thomas was the branch’s first advisor. Per NAACP guidelines, a senior in high school would be president of a youth branch, and a junior in high school would be vice president. Warren James, a senior at WHS, became president, and John Miller, a junior at WHS, served as vice president.³⁷

As protests occurred throughout the United States and the sit-in movement began, the Florence NAACP youth branch became eager to conduct a demonstration. After the training received at the Greenville conference and the example set forth by the “Greensboro Four,” the Florence youth branch, under Miller’s leadership, organized a sit-in at the S. H. Kress lunch counter on the corner of West Evans and South Dargan Street on March 3, 1960.³⁸ Page 121 →Although James was the president of the youth branch, Miller led the demonstrations. Miller’s parents were business owners, which afforded the family more freedom to act. James’s parents worked for white employers, so their son’s involvement could have resulted in them losing their jobs.³⁹

After school on March 3, around thirty students met at Trinity Baptist Church and prepared to carry out the initial Kress demonstration. Before the group left the church, one student, Cecil Gunter went to the Kress lunch counter to scope things out. Because he had a lighter skin tone, the other students hoped that there was a chance the counter would serve Gunter, but when he arrived, the workers behind the counter would neither serve him nor let him stay. Gunter reported back to Trinity Baptist to inform the group of his denial, and on hearing the news, the branch members decided to move forward with the sit-in. Around twenty-five students walked two blocks from the church to Kress and entered through the Dargan Street door.⁴⁰ On entry, the workers behind the counter made comments such as, “Here they come,” and “Clear the counter. We’re not serving you.”⁴¹ The workers likely anticipated a demonstration because of the reporting on sit-ins at many other Kress and Woolworth stores.⁴²

There were only a small number of unoccupied chairs at the counter, resulting in most of the students standing. The workers at the lunch counter did not serve the students, and when asked to leave, the students refused. Soon after their arrival, the store manager called the police and turned off the store lights. Chief of Police Melvin D. Adams and City Manager Aaron March arrived at the lunch counter and told the students that the store had closed, and they had to leave. The students went back to Trinity Baptist, but they decided to go back later that day to see if the store had reopened. They arrived back at the store to find it still closed, but trash cans had taken the place of the chairs the students had sat in earlier that day.⁴³

The outcome of the sit-in prompted the students to regroup and conduct another demonstration. They made plans to march and picket the front of Kress on the following day, March 4. On the second day of the demonstrations, over seventy students participated. They were mostly fifteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year-olds, but the youngest participant was twelve-year-old Ann Nelson. The students constructed handwritten signs and pinned them to their shirts. Their placards stated slogans, including “Full service or none,” “Our money is the same,” and “Give us equality.”⁴⁴

Page 122 →As the students marched from Trinity Baptist Church to Kress, they split into two groups, each going to different store entrances. One group found the door barricaded, so it rerouted to join the other group. Before the protestors could enter Kress, police forces intervened and arrested forty-eight students on charges of “parading without a permit.”⁴⁵ The students had their signs taken from them, and those who pinned their signs onto themselves had their clothing ripped. Onlookers began name-calling, but the students remained peaceful. In pairs, the police took the students to the Florence jail, which was located behind the store.

Customers at the lunch counter on the first day of the demonstrations did not react to the students. The only people who spoke to the students were the female server, the store manager, and Chief Adams. However, on the second day of the demonstrations, onlookers responded to the students by calling them names, taking their signs, and throwing projectiles.⁴⁶ Their antagonistic responses paralleled those of other communities. In Charleston, for example, “white patrons cleared the premises, and bystanders circulated rumors of a bomb threat” when Burke High School students performed a sit-in at a Kress store.⁴⁷ While the students in Florence endured derogatory remarks and physical confrontations, the police and court caused the brunt of their mistreatment.

When the students arrived at the jail, the police conducted body searches on each student, took their pictures, and questioned them. Twelve-year-old Ann Nelson said the police made her take off her dress when they conducted her body search. Nelson also described how the students passed word to one another to drop their heads when the officers tried to take their pictures. Nelson and Miller were among the students questioned. Nelson explained that the police chief asked her who told her to demonstrate. She responded, “My mind told me to come down here.”⁴⁸ Furthermore, five police officers took sixteen-year-old Miller into an interrogation room and questioned him without a parent present. One officer became frustrated and said, “Ain’t no need in talking to him. He’s not going to change his mind.”⁴⁹

The only parent the police called to the jail was Nelson’s mother.⁵⁰ Instead of calling the other students’ parents, the police called WHS’s Black principal, Dr. Gerald A. Anderson, and requested his presence at the jail to identify the students.⁵¹ Principal Anderson arrived and claimed that he did not recognize any of the students.⁵² His denial suggests either that he hoped to dissociate himself from the students and any further civil rights demonstrations or that he was trying to resist cooperating with the police. The police separated the students and placed the girls in adjacent cells and Page 123 →the boys in a different part of the jail. Officers gave each student a hamburger and a soda, but the jail cells were so filthy that some students, including Nelson, could not bear to eat the food. After holding them for many hours, the police released the students around one o’clock in the morning of March 5, on a combined bond of one hundred dollars.⁵³

The Florence Recorder’s Court set the first trial for March 7, but the students’ attorney, William Bennett, requested a continuance.⁵⁴ April 18 was the next scheduled court date, but the court granted a second continuance.⁵⁵ On April 20, the Florence court heard the case, and Bennett, Jenkins, and Matthew Perry represented the students.⁵⁶ Like Mitchell’s trial, the courtroom was at total capacity. Community members were eager to support the students, so they filled the courtroom and gathered in crowds outside the courthouse. Judge Charles C. McDonald heard the case, and he convicted thirty-four students on the charges of “parading without a permit” and sentenced them each to pay a thirty-dollar fine.⁵⁷ At the time, Article 5, Section 47 of the Ordinances of the City of Florence only allowed parades after obtaining a permit from the Chief of Police.⁵⁸

The demonstrators appealed their conviction, and the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned it. The wrongful convictions by Judge McDonald led to the 1962 South Carolina Supreme Court case, City of Florence v. George. Attorneys Bennett, Perry, and Jenkins represented the students. Ten students, including Nelson, had their cases transferred to the Children’s Court because they were under the age of sixteen at the time of their arrests. Chief Melvin D. Adams and multiple other officers as well as several of the accused students testified before the court. Perry made a motion to dismiss the charges, citing the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The South Carolina Supreme Court determined that the convictions of the remaining twenty-four students were wrongful because the students were not simply marching; they “were proceeding to a designated place in the City of Florence, to give public expression to their grievances,” and the Court overturned Judge McDonald’s ruling.⁵⁹

Although the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the students’ convictions, the charges were not immediately dropped. Students arrested in 1960 still had charges on their records as late as 2014 and 2020.⁶⁰ As if Florence’s authorities had not already caused enough suffering, they made no efforts to expunge the students’ charges and completely disregarded the resolution reached by the state court. Additionally, instead of following desegregation efforts like other Woolworth and Kress stores, Florence’s Kress chose to close the lunch counter instead of desegregating. Kress did not reopen the counter Page 124 →until the mid- to late 1970s.⁶¹ The incident sheds light on the lengthy measures Florence took to sustain its deeply rooted segregation practices.

Further youth-led protests occurred in Florence after the March 3–4 demonstrations. For two days, WHS students boycotted milk provided by the school cafeteria. Coble Dairy manufactured the milk, and the NAACP sent orders to boycott the company’s products because of its practices of racial discrimination.⁶² After the first day of boycotting, Principal Anderson threatened the students with punishment if they continued refusing the milk. Despite the threats, the students reworked their plan and boycotted the milk for an additional day.⁶³ Like the WHS students, around fifty students at Darlington’s Mayo High School also boycotted Coble Dairy products. However, instead of threatening the students with punishment, Mayo’s principal expelled four students for the protest.⁶⁴ The incident resulted in two 1960 South Carolina Supreme Court cases, Byrd v. Gary and Stanley v. Gary.⁶⁵ In addition to the milk boycotts, the NAACP adult and youth branches picketed in front of Florence’s Kress on August 13, 1960.⁶⁶

The demonstrations led by the Florence students influenced Black community members, and their involvement in the fight for civil rights increased. The community recognized the efforts of its Black members. Equal numbers of white and Black residents established the Florence Community Relations Committee in 1963. Mayor David H. McLeod pushed for the committee, hoping it would serve as a bond between the Black and white communities and lead to Florence becoming a unified community. A goal of the committee was for Florence to “set an example of social concern, job opportunity, and human relations … and contribute to progress and freedom in the world society.”⁶⁷ Notably, the Florence community formed the committee before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Over the next several years, community members came together to focus on the racial relations in Florence, and Mayor McLeod was in the middle of the efforts. In 1969, an incident occurred at the Little Farmer’s Market after people accused the white owner, Charles Smith, of racial discrimination and threats with a gun. Smith operated his farmer’s market in a predominantly Black neighborhood. With the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, around two hundred Black community members picketed the market in August of 1969. Mayor McLeod and local Black faith leaders encouraged the protestors to remain peaceful. However, there was Page 125 →some property damage, and the police arrested some demonstrators. Smith ultimately closed the farmer’s market after Mayor McLeod and other city officials urged him to do so.⁶⁸

The community heavily focused on school desegregation, as schools in surrounding areas had started integration efforts years before. In 1965, Florence allowed the first student to integrate McClenaghan High School Marvin Gunter, the brother of Cecil Gunter, who took part in the Kress demonstrations.⁶⁹ A few other Black students integrated after Gunter, and it led to a 1970 US Department of Justice order for Florence to provide an acceptable school desegregation plan. However, Florence School District 1 did not present a suitable desegregation plan to the Department of Justice until 2017.⁷⁰ Although the plan satisfied the Department of Justice, a degree of segregation is still evident in Florence schools. The demographics of Florence schools in the 2009–2010 academic year shows that WHS continues to have the most significant percentage of Black high school students compared with West and South Florence High Schools. Even with three hundred more students, West Florence had thirty-three percent fewer Black students than Wilson had during 2009–2010. The Department of Justice may consider Florence schools desegregated on the basis of the 2017 plan, but demographics prove that Florence schools have not achieved integration.⁷¹ Therefore, in the coming years, it remains critical to focus on school desegregation and equal opportunities among students.

During the civil rights movement, youth activists were leaders whose efforts were undeniably effective. They withstood violent treatment and other ramifications such as police brutality and imprisonment for conducting peaceful protests. The demonstrations led by the WHS students were inspiring and motivational to Black community members in Florence. Black people were fully aware of the city’s racial issues, but they mostly refrained from speaking out because of the fear of repercussions. However, seeing junior high school and senior high school students use their voices in the fight for change was the needed encouragement that drove the Black adults in the community to include themselves in the fight.

The junior high school and senior high school students’ demonstrations were successful. They sparked an eagerness in the community and led to changes in Florence’s race relations. Although negative consequences held back many Black people from participating early during the civil rights Page 126 →movement, the support at both Mitchells’ and the students’ court hearings showed that the community wanted to see change. The students’ desire to make a difference in racial dynamics motivated the Black community to unite and further the fight. The student-led demonstrations also led to the engagement of white members in the fight for racial equality through efforts such as creating the Community Relations Committee.

Youth participation during the civil rights movement shows awareness of racial inequality and an understanding of necessary action in fighting for radical changes. Miller states that the students’ demonstrations “generated awareness and stirred people to action.”⁷² The arrest and conviction of the forty-eight students generated the needed awareness in both the Black and white communities. Although the police arrested the students for their demonstrations, the community heard their voices. Although they lost the court case in Florence, they won in the South Carolina Supreme Court, which triggered awareness throughout the country, not just in Florence.

There has been progress toward ending institutional racism, yet its prevalence continues today. Recent racial issues prove that the battle is not over and that resistance to equity and justice continues today. Therefore, we cannot be content with where we stand. Further progress is necessary, and it is our duty, as Americans and humans, to uphold the voices of youth activists. Each person, young and old, has a responsibility to continue pushing for radical changes in America’s racial dynamics.

Erica Johnson Edwards is associate professor of history and faculty coordinator for Universities Studying Slavery at Francis Marion University. Her current research is into the influence of the Haitian Revolution across the US South during Reconstruction and into the early twentieth century.

Kerington B. Shaffer is a 2021 graduate of Francis Marion University’s history department. She completed an internship at the Marion County Museum and is a member of Phi Alpha Theta. She currently works in the motion picture industry.

1. 1. For more on the F. W. Woolworth and S. H. Kress department stores, see Jean Maddern Pirone, F. W. Woolworth and the American Five and Dime: A Social History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003) and Charlotte C. Egerton, “More than Nickels and Dimes: S. H. Kress Stores in the New South” (MA thesis, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2012).
2. 2. Page 127 →Wilson High School was a Black high school.
3. 3. “Negroes Jailed at 2 SC Cities,” The State, March 5, 1960, 1, 10.
4. 4. See Library of Congress, “Youth in the Civil Rights Movement,” www.loc.gov. See also Cleveland Sellers, interview by John Dittmer, directed by John Bishop, Civil Rights Project, Library of Congress, March 21, 2013, www.loc.gov (accessed June 7, 2022).
5. 5. Jon Hale, “‘The Fight was Instilled in Us’: High School Activism and the Civil Rights Movement in Charleston,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 114, no. 1 (2013): 4–28.
6. 6. Aldon Morris, “Black Southern Student Sit-in Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization,” American Sociological Review 46, no. 6 (1981): 744–67; William C. Hine, “Civil Rights and Campus Wrongs: South Carolina State College Students Protest, 1955-1968,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 97, no. 4 (1996): 310–31; Christopher W. Schmidt, “Why the 1960 Lunch Counter Sit-Ins Worked: A Case Study of Law and Social Movement Mobilization,” Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality 5, no. 2 (2017): 280–300.
7. 7. See for example, Claudia Smith Brinson, Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2020).
8. 8. Stephen Motte, Research on the civil rights movement in Florence, SC, Florence County Museum, 2011–14.
9. 9. John Miller, interview by Erica Edwards and Kerington Shaffer, Zoom, March 3, 2021.
10. 10. Ann Nelson, interview by Erica Edwards and Kerington Shaffer, directed by Larry Falck, Francis Marion University, March 23, 2021.
11. 11. Allie Brooks, Jr., interview by Erica Edwards and Kerington Shaffer, Zoom, February 17, 2021.
12. 12. Joseph Heyward, “Changes in African American Race Relations in Florence,” Francis Marion University African American Faculty and Staff Coalition Cultural Conversations Series. YouTube Video, 1:38, November 6, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zSQMRaWgak (accessed June 7, 2022).
13. 13. For more on Rainey, see William C. Hine, “Joseph Hayne Rainey,” South Carolina Encyclopedia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), www.scencyclopedia.org.
14. 14. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896).
15. 15. Miller, interview; Brooks, interview.
16. 16. Miller, interview.
17. 17. Nelson, interview.
18. 18. Briggs v. Elliott was a case in Clarendon County, South Carolina. Twenty African-American parents sued for equal education opportunities for their children. For more see, Delia B. Allen, “The Forgotten Brown Case: Briggs v. Elliott and Its Legacy in South Carolina,” Peabody Journal of Education 94 (2019): 442–67; and Wade Kolb III, “Briggs v. Elliot: A Study in Grassroots Activism and Trial Advocacy from the Early Civil Rights Era, Journal of Southern Legal History 19 (2011): 123–75.
19. 19. Eighty-Eighth Annual Report of the State Superintendent of Education, State of South Carolina, 1955–1956 (Columbia, SC: State Budget and Control Board, 1956), 234, 242.
20. 20. Page 128 →Brooks interview; John Miller interview.
21. 21. Called a “klonklave” within the KKK, a conclave was originally a secret session of the KKK. See A. V. Dalrymple, Liberty Dethroned: An Indictment of the Ku Klux Klan Based Solely upon Its Own Pronouncements, Philosophy, and Acts of Mob Violence (Philadelphia, PA: Times Publishing Company, 1923), 14.
22. 22. “KKK Conclave at Pee Dee Fair is Talk of Day,” Florence Morning News, November 8, 1925; “Historical Pageant will be the Big Feature of Program for Closing Day of the Show,” Florence Morning News, November 13, 1925.
23. 23. “Klansmen Get Busy on Case Long Standing,” Florence Morning News, December 12, 1925.
24. 24. Miller Recorded Interview; Traci Bridges, “Klan Rally Coordinator Cancels Planned Florence Event,” Florence Morning News, August 14, 2010.
25. 25. For other examples, see “Arizona Negro Soldiers Riot,” The State, November 28, 1942, 11; Harvard Sitkoff, “Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War,” The Journal of American History 58, no. 3 (1971): 661–81; Ann V. Collins, All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 87–114; and Nikki L. M. Brown and Barry M. Stentiford, eds., Jim Crow: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2014), 440–41.
26. 26. J. D. Lewis, “South Carolina – Military Airfields in World War II,” Carolana, www.carolana.com/SC/Transportation.
27. 27. “Near Riot by Negro Soldiers Quickly Quelled,” Florence Morning News, November 8, 1942.
28. 28. “3 More Negroes are Arrested,” Florence Morning News, November 9, 1942.
29. 29. Fred Andersen, “Test of Racial Law Nol Prossed in the City,” Florence Morning News, February 29, 1956.
30. 30. Ibid.
31. 31. William W. Bennett was from Lane, South Carolina. In 1953, he earned his law degree from South Carolina State University, a law school for Black students from 1947 to 1966. In addition to representing Mitchell, he represented a group of parents in a case to desegregate Florence schools in 1955, the Kress student demonstrators in 1960, and college student demonstrators in Orangeburg in 1960. At the time of his death in 1969, he was a trustee at Allen University and director of the Florence County Antipoverty Agency. From Darlington, Elliott D. Turnage earned his law degree from Harvard in 1954. He worked with Bennett on the school desegregation case in 1955. He also represented Darlington students who had been expelled over a milk boycott in 1960. Lincoln C. Jenkins Jr. was from Columbia. He completed his law degree at Howard in 1949. For more on these lawyers, see W. Lewis Burke, All for Civil Rights: African American Lawyers in South Carolina, 1868–1968 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017).
32. 32. “Thurmond Hits Possible FBI Council Probe,” Florence Morning News, January 2, 1956; and “What IS the Citizens’ Council?” Florence Morning News, February 11, 1956.
33. 33. Harold C. Fleming, “Resistance Movements and Racial Desegregation,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 304 (1956): 46–47.
34. 34. “What IS the Citizens’ Council?”
35. 35. Page 129 →For more on the ramifications, see James M. Fendrich, “Keeping the Faith or Pursuing the Good Life: A Study of the Consequences of Participation in the Civil Rights Movement,” American Sociological Review 42, no. 1 (1977): 144–57; Anthony J. Blasi, Segregationist Violence and Civil Rights Movements in Tuscaloosa (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1980); and Wayne A. Santoro, “The Civil Rights Movement and the Right to Vote: Black Protest, Segregationist Violence and the Audience,” Social Forces 86, no. 4 (2008): 1391–1414.
36. 36. Miller interview.
37. 37. Miller interview.
38. 38. For more on the Greensboro Four, see Iwan Morgan, From Sit-Ins to SNCC: The Student Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012).
39. 39. Miller interview; Nelson interview.
40. 40. “Negroes Stage First Sitdown at Florence,” The State, March 4, 1960, sec. D.
41. 41. Miller interview; Nelson interview.
42. 42. See for example, “Negro Students Denied Service Again in NC,” The State, February 4, 1960, 8; “Seating Row Spreads to 2 More Cities,” The State, February 9, 1960, 1; “Rock Hill Praised in Negro Cases,” The State, February 27, 1960, 3; and “Lunch Counter Pressure Eases in Three North Carolina Cities,” The State, February 22, 1960, 2.
43. 43. “Negroes Stage First Sitdown in Florence,” The State, March 4, 1960, 1.
44. 44. City of Florence v. George, 241 S.C. 77 (1962). Stephen Motte, Research on the Civil Rights Movement in Florence, SC, Florence County Museum, 2011–2014.
45. 45. “Negroes Jailed at 2 SC Cities,” The State, March 5, 1960, 1, 10.
46. 46. Miller interview; Nelson interview.
47. 47. Hale, “‘The Fight was Instilled in Us,’” 4.
48. 48. Nelson interview.
49. 49. Miller interview.
50. 50. Nelson interview.
51. 51. Anderson had been principal at WHS for 24 years (1942–1966) when he resigned to become assistant coordinator of the state-wide adult basic education program. See “Wilson High’s Principal Had Dreams Fulfilled,” Florence Morning News, December 12, 1965, 1.
52. 52. Miller interview.
53. 53. Nelson interview.
54. 54. “48 Negroes Win Delay in Hearings,” Florence Morning News, March 8, 1960, 2.
55. 55. “Trials Set on April 18 for Negroes,” Florence Morning News, March 26, 1960.
56. 56. “48 Demonstrators to be Tried Today,” Florence Morning News, April 20, 1960, 2. Matthew J. Perry was from Columbia. He earned his law degree at South Carolina State in 1953. He became the chief counsel of the South Carolina NAACP. For more on Perry, see Matthew J. Perry, Recorded interview by Joseph Mosnier, Civil Rights Project, Library of Congress, June 7, 2011, www.loc.gov.
57. 57. “In ‘Parading’ Case, Negro Youths Found Guilty as Charged,” Florence Morning News, April 21, 1960.
58. 58. City of Florence v. George.
59. 59. City of Florence v. George.
60. 60. Page 130 →Miller interview; Nelson interview.
61. 61. Miller interview.
62. 62. Hine, “Civil Rights and Campus Wrongs,” 316.
63. 63. Miller interview; Nelson interview.
64. 64. “Expelled for Boycotting Milk, S.C. Students File Suit,” Jet Magazine, April 21, 1960, 23; “Negro Youth,” Florence Morning News, May 7, 1960.
65. 65. Byrd v. Gary, 184 F Supp. 388 (D.S.C. 1960); Stanley v. Gary, 237 S.C. 237 (1960). See also “Mayo Students’ Petition Denied by U.S. Court,” Florence Morning News, May 20, 1960.
66. 66. Isaiah DeQuincey Newman, “Picketing of S. H. Kress and F. W. Woolworth Stores in South Carolina,” Special Report #3, August 13, 1960. Stephen Motte, Research on the Civil Rights Movement in Florence, SC, Florence County Museum, 2011–14.
67. 67. Community Relations Committee, “A Statement of Support: Believing These Things, We Voice our Individual and Collective Support,” 1963. Stephen Motte, Research on the Civil Rights Movement in Florence, SC, Florence County Museum, 2011–14.
68. 68. Larry Falck, “James A. Rogers, Progressive Editor, and the 1969 Racial Disturbances in Florence, SC,” (unpublished manuscript, May 2016). For more on the SCLC, see Adam Fairclough, “The Preachers and the People: The Origins and Early Years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1955–1959,” The Journal of Southern History 52, no. 3 (1986): 403–40; and To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).
69. 69. Essie Gunter Gross, Conversation with Stephen Motte, Florence County Museum, March 4, 2014; Miller interview.
70. 70. United States of America v. Florence County School District 1, Civil Action no. 70-609 (2017).
71. 71. Florence County Public School Statistics / Demographics, Public Schools K12, “Wilson High School, West Florence High School, and South Florence High School,” https://publicschoolsk12.com/high-schools/sc/florence-county/.
72. 72. Miller interview.

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