Thomas Gaither, who voted for prison after civil rights sit-in, dies at 86

The sit-in movement that began with white people – a lunch pilot in Greensboro, NC, in 1960 and soon spread to other cities, won the conscience of the country, but The colony was in jeopardy for a time after that.

In Rock Hill, SC, local businesses still refuse to join, despite sit-ins. The local news stopped covering them.

Then, in 1961, a 22-year-old organizer, Thomas Gaither, introduced a new scheme. In the sit-in, in the lunch of the MCCRORY grocery store in Rock Hill, the black students led by the students led them to the continuation of the police. But this time, instead of paying a lot of money, as the previous protesters did, they chose to serve the 30-day sentence in two gangs.

The “no bail” tactic reshaped moral commitment and changed the direction of the civil movement. Over the next few days, protesters in other cities followed suit, their introduction attracting attention and protests.

The choice of the prison, the branch of Taylorist wrote the water in “Water: America in the King Years 1954-63,” Persuasion.

Mr. Goage, who went on to play a leading role in the 1961 restoration, died Dec. 23 at his home in Prospect, Pa. North of Pittsburgh, his family said. He is 86.

The little Catalan of the 1960’s stage protests, Mr. Ude was one of the activists who, inspired by a moral purpose, quietly put his body to fight discrimination, a movement who helped write a federal law to end legal segregation and guarantee voting rights.

At Claflin College, an all-black institution in Orangeburg, SC, he served as president of the Naacp youth chapter in March 1960, a leader of about 1,000 students. Its leader, Charles McDew, was enrolled at nearby State College, and was also black; He went on to chair the organizing committee without student organizers, a national civic group.

Mangingeburg rioters attacked with tear gas and tear gas, resulting in 388 arrests. Much was made in a stockade for cattle, where they sang “God Bless America.”

After graduating in May 1960, Mr. Turts joined the Equality Congress, which used illegal direct action to fight segregation.

Mr. Gaide sent Mr. Tomota will take care of Kentucky, California and Arizona. Before the “prison without bail” settled in the hills on January 31, 1961, they helped train the protesters, eight students from College College. He and the students became known as the “friendship nine” after serving prison sentences.

“I felt that there could be a commitment on our part – to be willing to suffer for what we really want to happen,” Mr. Timit said in a 2011 history of human rights. the year 2011.

“The amazing thing about the friendship of the nine,” he said, “is that the group of students in the university did not know all the deafness and we removed one of the biggest resistance movements in the movement. .”

Many months later, Mr. Corizer, Gordon Corey, attacked with a snowsonm on a New Jersey Turspike bus on a bus to Core’s office in New York City.

They stayed for hours, each reading a biography of Mahatma Gandhi, the Apostle of non-violent protest, and throwing out how to continue the sitting time. They hatched the idea of ​​the first Freedom Ride: a united group of activists who would take a bus trip from Washington through the deep underground. The idea is to attract the refusal of the southern countries to comply with the supreme court’s ruling that is not in accordance with the constitution and the conclusion.

“We sat there and planned, the two of us, most of the freedom to ride the bus before we went back to New York City,” Mr. Carey, who is white, pleaded in a 1985 investigation.

James Farmer, director of Core, captured the idea.

“Jim Farmer was looking for a project, and this one could be very successful,” Mr. Elaitsika told the oral history. “I don’t think they underestimated how big they were going to be, because I think the latter is one of the signature movements of the civil movement.”

In May 1961, Mr. Farmer led the first freedom march, with white, black, and black passengers, including Congress and civil rights activist John Lewis.

In Alabama, core activists were arrested and beaten by white mobs led by the Ku Klux Klan. The bus they boarded was Fishombed. The police removed the violence, and the hospital refused to demand credit.

The national activists were led by many national activists, who published dozens of freedoms in the south in 1961. The violence touched the country, not less than the difficulty of the authorities in the south because of Jim’s law license Crow.

Mr. Bethel was absent from the original freedom operation in May 1961; Core appointed him to beautify the course and contact local sponsors to nominate their riders. Rev. stayed at the home of the civil rights leader. Ralph David Abernathery, Montgomery, Ala.

That night, more than 1,500 people went to the church of Atabernathy to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Talk like the white people around the house. Dr. King called on Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to send federal protections.

Mr. Times moved to Jackson, which was the goal.

Thomas Walter Gaither was born on November 12, 1938, in rural Great, SC, one of five sons of Walter B. and Fannie (Little))! His parents met while they were students at Sporal Junior College. They were both students, but his father was fired when he met a member of the White School Board who objected to $5 a month from his salary, Mr. Timest in his story. Walter Gaivher became a brick Mason.

Remembering Thomas’ mother, he forgot that “the self-reflection was so strong that it didn’t include the things that took us out of the way to go to college and get an education.”

He graduated high school as valedictorian and received a $75-a-year scholarship from CLAFLIN College (now Claflin University).

In 1962, after the sit-in and Freedom passed, he entered graduate school at Clark Atlanta At Angiversity to avoid the military draft, where he received a master’s degree in biology. Received Ph.D. in Plantation at the University of Iowa.

Dr. became a professor of biology. Gaite in 1968 at University Rock University, in western Pennsylvania, and taught there for 38 years. He retired in 2007. She was married for 58 years to (Jenner) Gaither, a psychiatrist, who died in 2021.

Valued by his sons T. Kenn and Edmund Andre क क iA Five Five; his brothers, Herman and Edmund Barry Gaelita; and his sisters, Glenda Davis and Diane Gaelita Thompson.

In later years, Dr. Gait \ither learned that the civil movement had changed America, but the system of segregation remained in the South.

“There’s no question, the South has changed a lot,” he said in 2011. “But the basic infrastructure of segregation and segregation that we call shooting in the 1960s is still in place. It happened with little labels. they were different, they accomplished their goals in slightly different ways, but there was no real fundamental change that really called out the signs.”