Mack Cartier Workman

Mr. Mack Cartier Workman entered into eternal rest on March 5, 2024 at Jacobi Medical Center Bronx, New York. He was born to the late Willie Workman, Sr. and Elizabeth Workman on September 6, 1942.

Mack was a proud member of the Emmett Scott High School class of 1960. In the fall of that same year, he entered Friendship Junior College on a football scholarship, and it is here that he alongside ten fellow students would have a significant impact on the ongoing Civil Rights movement and protest.

On the morning of Janurary 31, 1961, Mack and ten of his fellow classmates alongside the Rock Hill City Girls also affiliated with Friendship College led a protest against the segregated lunch counter at McCory’s Five and Dime Department Store in downtown Rock Hill.

Mack and these nine fellow students were arrested upon sitting down at the lunch counter. The group chose to go to jail opposed to being bailed out by the NAACP. The Southern Leadership Conference, and local African American Churches.

This movement became known as “Jail No Bail” and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement by putting the care of these imprisoned protesters back onto the local city jails. The group became known as the “Friendship Nine” and were sentenced to 30 days on the “York County Chain Gang”.

Word of the heroism of the Friendship Nine spread quickly throughout southern states and was used effectively later by the Interstate Bus Boycotters to end segregation on Interstate Bus lines during the summer of 1961. Dr. King would later use the strategy “Jail No Bail” during the Summer of Freedom in 1963, to integrate as he called “the most segregated city in America Birmingham”, Alabama by flooding the city jail there with both adult and children protestors.

Mack was a tireless champion of civil rights and would often be seen especially during Black History Month in February speaking about not only his experience as a member of the Friendship Nine but also his experience of being an African American drafted during the Vietnam War. Both of these experiences forever changed his life, and he dedicated the remainder of his life working as a youth counselor first for the City of New York Juvenile Detention Center Spofford in the Bronx and The Catholic Charities Group Home in New Rochelle, NY.

Shortly after moving to New York City in 1964, he met his wife of 58 years Ethel Workman who processed him in death on Thanksgiving Day, 2023. They were joined in holy matrimony on August 11, 1966, and to this union God blessed them with three children Anthony, Michelle and Latarsha, and a special nephew Bryon, whom he reared in the home after the passing of Byron’s mom Carolyn in 1995. Mack Workman was a faithful member of the House of God Church in New York City for over 50 years. He remained faithful to ministry and supported his current pastor Elder Angela Greene as a Deacon, Worship Leader and Sunday School Teacher. Mack had a passion for studying and listening to the word of God, he could be found on any given Sunday watching the telecast of the late Bishop G.E. Patterson which he rarely missed an episode. In retirement both Mack and Ethel enjoyed spending time with their children and grandchildren as often as possible.

Besides his parents and his wife of 58 years Ethel Workman who preceded him in death, left to treasure his memory are his son Anthony (Shannon) of Roanoke, VA, his daughter Mciche