Kissing Case

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Kissing Case was the arrest, conviction and lengthy sentencing of two prepubescent African-American boys in 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina. A white girl kissed each of them on the cheek and later told her mother, who accused the boys of rape. The boys were then charged by authorities with molestation. Civil rights activists became involved in representing the boys. The boys were arrested in October 1958, separated from their parents for a week, beaten and threatened by investigators, then sentenced by a Juvenile Court judge.^[1]

Leaders and members of the local NAACP, including Robert F Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Eisenhower, and other civil rights organizations, such as the New York-based The Committee to Combat Racial Injustice (CCRI), protested the charges, trial and sentencing. The United States was embarrassed by protests from other governments, demonstrations in major cities, and strong criticism in the international press. North Carolina Governor Luther H. Hodges finally granted clemency to the boys, releasing them from the reformatory in early 1959 after they had been there for three months.^[2] Neither he nor authorities in Monroe ever officially apologized to the boys or their families.