Attorney John Gaines, one of Friendship 9 demonstrators in Rock Hill, dies (2024)

ROCK HILL — John Gaines, one of nine men who played a crucial role in the civil rights movement in Rock Hill has died, Ideal Funeral Parlor in Florence announced June 13.

Gaines was the NAACP student branch president at Rock Hill’s Friendship Junior College in 1961 when he and several others young Black men organized a sit-in at the counter of a downtown Rock Hill restaurant to protest segregation. Gaines spent 30 days at a prison farm, then spent a lifetime seeing the fruits of that labor break color barriers.

As of June 17, Ideal was still making funeral arrangements for Gaines, who died June 5.

All but four of the Friendship 9 now are dead.

The sit-ins began in earnest on Feb. 1, 1960 at the Woolworth counter in Greensboro, N.C., as young African Americans sought equal access to public spaces. Activists were prepared to be arrested and post bail, but the effort was starting to cost a lot of money. In Rock Hill alone, the community had spent about $17,000 in one year.

The Friendship 9 in Rock Hill adopted a new approach: “Jail, No Bail.” The protesters would serve their 30 days in jail rather than be bailed out, crowding the prisons and making it difficult for officials to manage it all. The tactic caught on, and others elsewhere adopted it.

The sit-in at McCrory’s, a downtown Rock Hill restaurant, was on Jan. 31, 1961. Gaines and eight others chose to serve their time at York County Prison Farm. It wasn’t easy.

Gaines remained active in the civil rights movement after the group’s release from jail, according to the Friendship 9 website. He continued his education, which culminated in a law degree from Howard University. He returned to Rock Hill and worked for the Model Cities program, then joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Florence, where he worked on civil rights cases that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court and changed civil rights laws.

Gaines worked as a lawyer in both civil rights cases and in general practice until retiring, according to the Friendship 9 website.