Local civil rights icon, “Friendship Nine” member, Dub Massey dies at 84

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Local civil rights icon W.T. “Dub” Massey has died at the age of 84. Massey was a member of the “Friendship Nine,” a group of Black men arrested for staging a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter in downtown Rock Hill in 1961. The group is known as the first to take “jail, no bail,” instead serving 30 days in a York County prison camp.

WCCB Charlotte interviewed Massey in 2011, when he talked about the courage it took for him to join the group. Massey said, “At first, I said ‘I don’t know if I can do this or not,’ because they were talking about being spat upon, knocked off the stools, cursed, you know, called names.”

Massey said then he was proud of the message he left behind for a new generation. Funeral announcements have not been released.