James Wells, a member of a South Carolina civil rights group known as the Friendship Nine and a 1973 graduate of the College of Law, has died.
Wells spent a month in jail in 1961 after he and eight other black men were charged with trespassing at a whites-only lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The men, all young students at Friendship Junior College at the time, pioneered the “jail, no bail” strategy during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Civil rights protesters usually paid fines upon their arrest, but the men of the Friendship Nine were hoping to make a more profound statement by accepting the alternative punishment – 30 days of hard labor.
Following his graduation from Friendship, Wells enlisted in the Air Force, completed law school, and practiced law in South Carolina until his retirement.
The convictions of Mr. Wells and the other members of the Friendship Nine were overturned in 2015, and apologies were issued to the men by York County prosecutors.
Full obituary at Washington Post