Charleston Currents #13.28 | May 24, 2021
FUZZY BLOOM. Here’s a photo of a fuzzy pink mimosa bloom, seen as beautiful by many around the Lowcountry at this time of year/ But the invasive invasive species has ugly seed pods in the cooler months that led Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener to call it a “wonderful weed.” He said the tree (albizia julibrissin) was brought to the country in 1785 to Charleston by noted French botanist Andre Michaux where it “grew quickly into a vase-shaped, flat-topped tree, 30 to 40 feet tall, and it loved the Southern climate. The flowers, attractive to butterflies, hummingbirds, and colonial gardeners, ranged in color from nearly red to deep pink to flesh-pink to white.” See something you think our readers would enjoy? Snap a shot and send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. Copyrighted photo by Andy Brack.
FOCUS: Charleston Law graduate wins prestigious fellowship
COMMENTARY, Brack: Legislature needs to get it right on making state, jails safer
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: SC Clips
NEWS BRIEFS: Spoleto season starts May 28; Piccolo guide is now online
FEEDBACK: Send us a letter
MYSTERY PHOTO: Familiar archway
CALENDAR: Take the bus to the beach
Charleston Law graduate wins prestigious fellowship
Staff reports | Michelle Mapp, a 2021 graduate of the Charleston School of Law, is one of 77 public interest lawyers who will be a fellow with Equal Justice Works, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that seeks to promote a lifelong commitment to public service and equal justice.
Mapp
“Coming into law school, I knew about the Equal Justice Works because I knew Amy Armstrong who runs the S.C. Environmental Law Project, and she had done a fellowship and gotten her start that way,” said Mapp, who entered law school mid-career after serving as executive director of the S.C. Community Loan Fund. “In my second year at law school, I did an internship with the S.C. ACLU, and it sparked my interest in the right to counsel.”
Each year, Equal Justice Works selects a class of public service leaders who have designed projects in partnership with legal services organizations to help build sustainable solutions in the communities they serve. These projects are funded by law firms, corporations, foundations and individuals.
According to a press release, Mapp will be advocating for the passage of a Tenant Right to Counsel law in South Carolina to prevent eviction and displacement of low-income and African American households. The project will be hosted by ACLU South Carolina and sponsored by Atlanta law firm Alston & Bird’s Racial Justice Fund.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities and significantly worsened the housing crisis in this country,” says Kristen Uhler-McKeown, vice president of fellowships at Equal Justice Works. “We are honored to support Michelle’s crucial work supporting tenants at risk of eviction and advancing the right to counsel legislation in South Carolina.”
In 2016, The Eviction Lab found that North Charleston had the worst eviction rates in the country, followed not far behind by Columbia.
“The goal is to find a comprehensive solution to the eviction crisis,” said Mapp, who will begin her fellowship in the fall.. “The pandemic has just highlighted the eviction issue in South Carolina, which was already a problem. We are thinking through long-term legal solutions and thinking about pieces that need to be put in place.”
One piece of the puzzle is replicating what has already been done in Richmond, Va., which ranked No. 2 in Eviction Lab’s 2016 list. “Equal Justice Works already has a housing justice program in Richmond, and part of my project is to replicate what they’ve been able to do with law students in Richmond around the eviction issue,” Mapp said.
The Charleston School of Law’s motto, “pro bono populi” or “for the good of the people” highlights its connection to public service.
“Michelle’s entire life, both personal and professional, has been dedicated to acting for the good of others,” said former Charleston School of Law Dean Andy Abrams. “She is compassionate to those in need and passionate about ensuring that everyone is treated with dignity, respect, and fairness. She is resilient, resourceful, and resolute. She is a woman of great integrity, of high character, and of action. And now with her legal training in hand, I have no doubt but that she will be an irrepressible agent for positive change in our community and in the lives of those she will serve.”
- Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
Legislature needs to get it right on making state, jails safer
Activists kneeled this week before departing the Charleston County Courthouse during a protest stemming from the in-custody death of Jamal Sutherland. Charleston City Paper photo by Sam Spence.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The white majority in the S.C. General Assembly needs to listen to Black colleagues on this: It’s critical for them to work together to make sweeping institutional reforms in jails, prisons and among rank-and-file law enforcement authorities.
Needless deaths, pain and suffering must stop.
In April 2015, a North Charleston police officer shot Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black man, in the back after stopping him for having a non-functioning vehicle brake light. The officer went to prison. Legislators passed a law mandating that police wear body cameras. But a newspaper study in 2020 showed the law hasn’t lived up to its expectations due to funding, which is something the General Assembly controls.
In June 2015, a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, including state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, a colleague. The shootings gob-smacked the nation. A president sang “Amazing Grace” at Pinckney’s funeral. Yet, six years have passed and nothing has happened to close the loophole that allowed the terrorist, now in prison, to buy the gun used in the slayings.
Then in January, jail officials in Charleston electro-shocked 31-year-old Jamal Sutherland six to eight times with tasers and fired two rounds of pepper spray to try to get him out of a cell to attend a bond hearing. In essence, the prisoner with mental health issues was electrocuted. Officers used extreme violence instead of the simple alternative of rescheduling the hearing.
Nothing good can come from continuing to do nothing to reform a system that allows these kinds of tragedies to happen in the Palmetto State. Continued failure to do nothing will only provide opportunities for the system to continue to fail and more people to die.
Lawmakers must find ways when returning for special sessions this year to get serious and make our state safer, particularly for Black men in the sights of law enforcement authorities. Some ideas:
More training. Did Sutherland really need to be tased up to eight times? Do officers know what each zap does to a body? Better training for authorities surely could have helped in this instance — and scores of others we don’t know about.
More treatment funding. The state needs to plow significant funding to pay for mental health treatment that intervenes before people get into the jail pipeline. It needs more crisis counselors and ways for people to seek help before problems get out of control. Lawmakers should overhaul the crisis safety net. To be clear: This is not a call to “defund the police” and retarget existing resources, but a plea to add more money to pay for better mental health education for the public and law enforcement officers, extra mental health evaluations, more mental health treatment alternatives and infrastructure money for a system that has been crumbling for years. Purchasing more law enforcement toys isn’t going to rectify mental health treatment systems that have been crumbling for decades.
Use the right tools. Are tasers and pepper spray and restraints and guns needed all of the time in all situations? Perhaps authorities need to consider limiting tools of violence based on situational appropriateness. Otherwise, as House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford told The Post and Courier, “When you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail.” The General Assembly can provide guidance and limit overzealous uses of force.
Situations involving confrontation in our society are difficult. Law enforcement authorities have a difficult job and generally do it well. But better training in how to use the right tools, upgrades for the whole mental health safety net, more funding and other institutional reforms can add balance to a system tilted against the most vulnerable.
Lawmakers need to start getting it right because doing nothing, again, is not an option.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Charleston Currents, and publisher of the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
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Spoleto season starts May 28; Piccolo guide is now online
Staff reports | Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival returns May 28 with a slate of all-free, all-outdoor performances and safe, pandemic-friendly exhibitions that will scratch that itch you’ve been feeling to get out and experience the Holy City’s creative community.
You can find the printed 16-page Piccolo Spoleto 2021 guide in the Charleston City Paper and at venues around town. But because this season’s free events are being continuously updated, you might want to also check at charlestonarts.org to get the most updated information on events. Piccolo is a companion celebration to Spoleto Festival USA, which also starts May 28 and ends June 13.
This year’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival includes a number of surprise pop-ups around Charleston, a series of unique outdoor poetry recitations downtown and performances you likely won’t see even as precautions are phased out and the festival returns in 2022. And of course, Piccolo Spoleto features the outdoor arts exhibition that you know and love in Marion Square, with two weekends of crafts markets nearby.
In other recent news:
More work to rein in opioid crisis. Members of the S.C. House of Representatives say they know they have a lot of work still to do to combat the state’s crisis of opioid addiction, but they also say they’ve come a long way. Since 2018, lawmakers have approved more than a dozen bills to put a dent in opioid addiction including opioid-related measures to monitor prescriptions, requiring informed consent for medications given to minors, updating drug laws, adding some community services, prescription limits, processing changes, and more that $11 million in prevention and capital improvement funding. Despite legislative success, things are getting worse as opioids are the cause of almost 70 percent of the nation’s overdose deaths. South Carolina, a new Quotewizard study says, has the fifth highest overdose death rate in the nation with 1,568 overdose deaths in 2020 compared to 1,107 the year before. Bottom line: As thousands of South Carolinians died from COVID-19 in 2020, overdose deaths went up 41.6 percent. Learn more from the original story in Statehouse Report.
Tough storm season predicted. Weather officials predicted Thursday that the 2021 storm season, which starts June 1, likely will include “above normal” hurricane activity. They said there is a 70 percent chance that there will be 13 to 20 named storms. And of those, six to 10 are expected to become hurricanes and as many as five could strengthen into major hurricanes. More: National Public Radio | The Post and Courier.
Death row inmates sue after being forced to choose between firing squad or electric chair. South Carolina is now asking death-row inmates to choose between the electric chair and firing squad, citing a lack of lethal injection drugs. More: SC Public Radio | NPR.
S.C. lawmakers lean in on jail reform bills. As the fallout around the January death of Jamal Sutherland in a Charleston County jail mounts, members of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus is pushing for reforms — in bills already filed and others in consideration as the session breaks. The bills focus on the way law enforcement officials treat people with mental illnesses and seek to ensure more accountability. More: The Post and Courier | WCBD.
Internet access expanding in rural S.C. as part of utility partnership. A pair of rural utility cooperatives announced a five-year, $150 million project to install broadband internet service in the mountainous, far-western reaches of South Carolina. More: The Post and Courier | Spartanburg Herald-Journal.
SCDOT’s paving program to be ‘largest in S.C. history.’ The S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) announced Thursday its new 2021-2022 paving program, which DOT officials promise will rehab nearly 1,000 miles of roads through funding from the state’s gas tax. More: WSPA TV
Send us a letter
We love hearing from readers. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information. Send your letters to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com. | Read our feedback policy.
Familiar archway
Here’s an archway that may look familiar. But what and where is it? Send your best guess to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live. And if you’ve got a clever mystery photo for our readers, send it to the same address (Try to stump us!)
Our previous Mystery Photo
Last week’s mystery, “Moon shot,” came from longtime reader Barry Wingard of Florence, who shared this photo near his hometown’s Hotel Florence of a sculpture showing a man and woman trying to lasso the moon.
Several readers correctly identified it, including George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Jay Altman of Columbia; and Bill Segars of Hartsville. Good one, Barry!
Peel shared: “The statue is one a number of art pieces that have been installed throughout Florence as a part of the city’s public art initiative. The sculpture is called Luna Caprese Grande and was created by Giacinto Bosco, who was born in 1956 in Alcamo, Sicily, and now works in Milan. You can see some of his other work here.”
- Send us a mystery: If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.
Take the bus to the beach
Staff reports | The Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority will start operating its Beach Reach Shuttle with hourly weekend service on May 29 to provide a new connection between Mount Pleasant and Isle of Palms.
Landside Beach Reach parking will be located along Market Center Boulevard in Mount Pleasant Towne Centre. The seasonal park-and-ride shuttle will tie-in directly to the existing CARTA system at stop No. 715, a sheltered amenity located near the Belk Men’s store. The on-island Beach Reach stop is located at 9th Avenue and Ocean Boulevard, adjacent to public beach access.
The weekend route will run through Sept. 6 starting at 9:15 a.m. with a final departure from Isle of Palms at 5:35 p.m. Cost: $2 each way.
Also on the calendar:
Poetry at McLeod: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., May 29, McLeod Plantation Historic Site, 325 Country Club Dr., James Island. Poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis will deliver her award-winning poetry on the grounds of this historic “place of conscience,” a can’t-miss opportunity to explore the past, present, and future through poetry. And a handful of spots remain for her poetry workshop, Tell Me Your Names, on May 30; sign up while you still can!
Waterparks open on weekends. Each of Charleston County’s three parks — in North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and James Island — is now open for weekends only. Splash Zone at James Island County Park will be open daily starting June 5 through mid-August, when it will return to weekends only until Labor Day. Splash Island at Mount Pleasant Palmetto Islands County Park and Whirlin’ Waters Adventure Waterpark in the North Charleston Wannamaker County Park will be open weekends only until June 18, when they will open daily until mid-August. Both will then open on weekends through Labor Day.
Safe Sounds: Firefly Distillery, North Charleston. Head over to citypapertickets.com to secure a spot. Tickets are available now. Doors open 6 p.m. for shows that begin an hour later. (Editor’s note: City Paper Tickets, which is run by sister publication Charleston City Paper, is operating ticketing for Safe Sounds.) Check out some of the shows that are on the way:
Johns Island concerts: June 5 and July 10, Johns Island County Park. The reggae sounds of Mystic vibrations on June 5 and the Motown sounds of The Legacy on July 10. For each show, gates open at 6 p.m. with music beginning at 7 p.m. Shows end by 9:30 p.m. Tickets are available for $60 per 10×10 square, not per person. Squares are limited to four people max. Guests must arrive together, as each vehicle must have a ticket for entry. Squares will be available on a first-come, first-served basis upon arrival. Each show will also offer food vendors; no outside food, alcohol or coolers will be permitted. Alcohol will be available for purchase. Patrons are encouraged to bring chairs, blankets, tables, etc. to be used at their space. Masks are required, except when eating.
Ongoing
The Lawn Party exhibition: Through Sept. 19, Charleston Museum, Meeting Street, Charleston. The Charleston Museum is pleased to present The Lawn Party: From Satin to Seersucker, the latest offering in its Historic Textiles Gallery. In an “unprecedented” era when large gatherings have been discouraged and fashion has trended towards leisurewear, this exhibition is a celebration of getting dressed up for an outdoor party. Bringing a hint of glamour to a trying time, the garments on display were selected with the grand idea of “after” in mind. This is a perfect opportunity to come see what to wear for your next outdoor event as we head toward the new “normal.”
Holy City Farmers Market: 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., every Wednesday, Holy City Brewing, North Charleston. vendors rotate weekly to provide shoppers with a tiny but mighty shopping experience. vendors will be selling a range of products from specialty foods, home and body care to arts and crafts. More info.
Birds of Prey flight demonstrations: 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays, Center for Birds of Prey, 4719 Highway 17. Awendaw. The center has reopened its doors to visitors after closing due to the COvID-19 pandemic, inviting people to once again come and explore the world of raptors through an outdoor program and flight demonstration. Tickets: . $20/adult; $15/children age 3-17.
Artist exhibition in Park Circle: Through May 28, Park Circle Gallery, North Charleston. More than a dozen new mixed media works will be on display by Johns Island-based artist Christine Bush Roman, winner of the 2020/21 North Charleston Arts Fest Poster Design Competition. Her winning design, Oak Circus, will be featured in the exhibition, which is presented as a component of the annual North Charleston Arts Fest.
Sunday Brunch Farmers Market: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., every Sunday, Charleston Pour House, 1977 Maybank Highway, James Island. While the market is discouraging people from spending too much time hanging out during the market, everyone is invited to shop their local vendors.
Bird-watching at Caw Caw. Every Wednesday and Saturday — particularly through the end of February — you can see a plethora of birds at Caw Caw Interpretive Center in Ravenel as they make their way through the Lowcountry. The two-hour regular walks, which start at 8:30 a.m., are through distinct habitats that allow participants to view and discuss a variety of birds, butterflies, and other organisms. Registration is not required. Participants are encouraged to bring their own binoculars. A paid chaperone is required for participants ages 15 and under. Max. 10 participants. Fee: $9; free for Gold Pass holders. Open to all ages. More: Caw Caw Interpretive Center.
- If you have any online events, drop us a line (editor@charlestoncurrents.com) and make sure to put “Online event” in the subject line. Similarly, if you’ve got cool ideas for stuff to do while in isolation at home, send them our way.
- ORDER NOW: Copies of our new book, 350 Facts About Charleston, are in Lowcountry-area bookstores now, but if you can’t swing by, you can order a copy online today.
As more people stay home to deal with the coronavirus crisis, people are looking for things to do. You can find some fun things to do online in our calendar section below, but let us also encourage you to FORWARD your issue of Charleston Currents to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. It’s got a great price, as you know: Free! We hope they’ll enjoy our coverage.
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