Two pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement, Charles Person and Thomas Gaither

For Charles Person and Thomas Gaither, 1961 was an eventful year in their young lives. Person was 18 and became the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, and Gaither was 22 when he introduced the sit-in tactic at a dime store in Rock Hill, S.C. There’s a good chance over the succeeding years the two pioneers may have met since they both were key members of the fight to end segregation and racial discrimination. Though four years apart in age, they died within a year of each other, Gaither on December 23, 2024, at 86, and Person on January 8, 2025 at 82.

Gaither, born on Nov. 12, 1938 in Great Falls, S.C., was one of five children of Walter B. and Fannie (Little) Gaither. His parents met as students at Friendship Junior College and both became teachers, though his father was later fired when he confronted a white member of the school board who was stealing five dollars a week from his salary. His father then made a living as a brick mason.

After graduating as valedictorian from high school, Gaither won a scholarship to what is now Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C. In school, he led a march of a thousand students, many of them arrested, and sang “God Bless America,” behind bars. After his graduation, he was hired as a field secretary by CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and dispatched to several states. Within a year, he was back in Rock Hill where with eight others, later collectively called the “Friendship Nine,” Gaither launched his tactic of refusing to pay the $100 trespassing fine, choosing to serve 30-day sentences on the county chain gang.

Soon their strategy, famously named “jail no bail,” was adopted by other civil rights activists, and eventually changed the Civil Rights Movement. “I felt that there should be more of a commitment on our part — being willing to suffer for something that we really wanted to have happen,” Mr. Gaither said in a 2011 oral history of the Civil Rights Movement. “The amazing thing about the Friendship Nine,” he added, “was that we took essentially a group of college students who had no knowledge at all of tactical nonviolence and we pulled off one of the most important protest events of the movement.”

Gaither went on to participate in the Freedom Rides and in fact it may have been his idea to start them after being stuck on a bus with a fellow white activist, Gordon Carey, both having absorbed the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. James Farmer, the founder and leader of CORE, seized on the idea. “I don’t think we estimated how big it would become, because I think it ultimately was one of the signature protests of the entire Civil Rights Movement,” Gaither said in an oral history project.

If Gaither had been among the original Freedom Riders he might have met Charles Person, born on September 27, 1942 in Atlanta. Person’s father, Hugh. was an orderly at Emory Hospital, and his mother Ruby (Booker) Person, was a domestic worker. He was a gifted math and science student and was accepted to MIT, but without a scholarship he couldn’t afford the tuition. Later, he applied to Georgia Tech, where his race was a barrier. When he was accepted at Morehouse College, he planned to become a nuclear engineer.

But the Civil Rights Movement intervened, and like Gaither, he participated in both sit-ins and Freedom Rides. “Once I got involved, it was infectious. Anything that had to do with protests, I was there.” Through the sit-ins, he was recruited by CORE which was looking for more Freedom Riders. Since he was a minor, he had to have permission from his parents; his mother refused to sign but he was able to convince his father. It was while on a bus to Anniston, Alabama where an earlier bus had been firebombed, that Person was attacked by Klansmen, dragged from the bus, and severely beaten. When the bus continued its route to Birmingham, Person along with James Peck, a white protester also savagely attacked, once again challenged segregation laws and the mob seized and beat both of them. Person was able to get away and ran to the home of the legendary Fred Shuttlesworth, whose residence would become a veritable safe haven for the riders.

When the Freedom Rides subsided, Person returned home and his mother convinced him to find another way to protest. He joined the Marines, served two years in Vietnam, and spent the bulk of his service stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. An electronics expert, he later opened his own electronics store. He retired in 1981. In 2022, he wrote “Buses Are a Comin’: Memoirs of a Freedom Rider” with Richard Rooker. And given how instrumental Gaither was in the movement, CORE, the Freedom Rides, the sit-ins, and working with Bob Moses in COFO (Council of Federated Organizations), a book of his life and legacy would amplify the historic activism.