Charleston Currents – 2018

CALENDAR, Jan. 1+: Berman’s civil rights photos on display at library

Staff reports | If you want to know more of what life was like on Johns Island as the civil rights movement was blossoming, you should see Ida Berman’s collection of photographs now on display at the Charleston County Public Library, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston.

A celebrated photographer and immigrant, Berman snapped these never-before-seen photos of places and scenes on the sea island from January 1959 include people working at The Progressive Club as well as portraits of civil rights leaders Esau Jenkins, Myles Horton, Septima Clark and others.

Special Jan. 4 event: Candie Carawan, who published the landmark, “Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?” with husband Guy Carawan, will share civil rights stories with Team Backpack journalists 5:30 p.m. Jan. 4 in the library’s auditorium. The book includes statements from Johns Island residents during the modern civil rights movement.

by Charleston Currents · 01/01/2018 · Comments are Disabled · calendar

MYSTERY PHOTO: The remains of a day

The remains of this building have a place in area history, but what was it? (Hint: It could be related to something mentioned in this issue.) Send your best guess – plus your name and hometown – to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. In the subject line, write: “Mystery Photo guess.”

The Dec. 18 mystery, contributed by Hanahan photographer Chuck Boyd, shows the postal museum at the U.S. Post Office at the corner of Meeting and Broad streets in Charleston – one of the infamous Four Corners of Law.

Hats off to several alert readers who correctly identified the display: Michael Kaynard, J.J. Anderson and Kristina Wheeler of Charleston; Chris Brooks of Mount Pleasant; former James Island resident Tom Brown of Jacksonville, Fla.; Judy Roumillat of North Charleston; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; and Archie Burkel of James Island.

by Charleston Currents · 01/01/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Mystery Photo, Photos

HISTORY: Circular Congregational Church, Charleston

S.C. Encyclopedia | Circular Congregational Church, dedicated in 1892, is the fourth house of worship on this site at 150 Meeting Street in Charleston. Its Richardsonian Romanesque style reflects Charleston’s tradition of adopting current architectural fashion for ecclesiastical buildings, despite the city’s famous conservatism in residential design.

Followers of many creeds populated early Charleston. The city’s first congregations, St. Philip’s (Church of England) and the Dissenter’s Society, were organized in 1681. Builders of the “White Meeting House” that gave Meeting Street its name, the Dissenters included Presbyterians, Huguenots, and Congregationalists. French Protestants soon had their own church and others withdrew to form First (Scots) Presbyterian, but the independent church flourished, dedicating a larger building in 1732.