Nine-year-old James Hanover Thompson and his friend David Simpson, age seven, were doing what they always did after school: playing with the other neighborhood kids. But one day in 1958, their lighthearted games took a serious turn.
A little white girl kissed them both on the cheek. But when she told her parents, the adults had the two boys arrested for assault before they even made it home. James and David were tried without a lawyer and sentenced to 21 years in a reform school. The Black community was having none of it.
Local news did everything possible to bury the story. However, Robert Williams, the head of the local NAACP, took up their case. The story broke with the help of Ted Poston, a Black journalist for the New York Post. From there, papers around the U.S. and the world ran with it.
The Black community fought to free the boys, with the support of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, President Eisenhower, civil rights organizations, and the international press. The pressure was so unrelenting that the governor of North Carolina amnestied James and David after they had been locked away for three months.
Thanks to the determination of their community, Thompson and Simpson were freed. Their case shows what can be accomplished when we come together for a common cause. When we stand up to defend members of our community, we can reshape our world.