Lowcountry Giving Day is Tuesday, Sept. 19. It’s a community-wide event to allow people to support local nonprofits on a day of giving.
It’s also an event at RiverDogs Stadium from 3 p.m. to 9 pm. The event is expected to be the largest local gathering of nonprofits in the history of Charleston, according to this website. Learn more on how you can make a difference locally.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | One hundred years ago yesterday, my great-grandfather, weakened by the flu, died of what’s believed to have been a ruptured appendix. He was 38 years old. The season’s cash crop, cotton, was about ready to pop in the fields.
Charles Columbus Brack left a 31-year-old widow and six children, aged 1 to 10. They lived in rural middle Georgia in an unpainted house five miles from the nearest town. It was only a mile from their Baptist church where a family reunion of sorts occurred yesterday.
Tables in the church hall showcased just about every sort of Southern food – from fried chicken and roast beef to at least four kinds of beans, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, rice salad, and plain salad salad. The dessert table was almost as long with the 16-layer chocolate cake being the talk of the room.
With lots of flooding across Charleston County, we’d like to share your favorite or best photo of what’s happening in your neighborhood during the rainy and windy conditions from what is now known as Tropical Storm Irma.
Either send your photos to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com or post to our Facebook page here. Please let us know a little bit about the picture (when and where it was taken) as well as your name and hometown.
As we collect pictures, we’ll share them on this page and on social media.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | With a storm breathing down the state’s neck, people turn to state and local governments for leadership, safety and solutions. While government gets scrutiny year-round, maybe we should look at what’s working so we appreciate it more – and examine what may need some help so that it works better.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Mention the word “Confederate” these days and you sound like you’re itching for an argument. It shouldn’t be that way.
For months across the South, there have been calls to remove Confederate monuments or to rename buildings or streets honoring long dead Confederate soldiers. At the same time, others have said to leave the statues and names alone.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | When Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as assistant secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920, he made several trips to Charleston to help “to build up, to some degree at least, this splendid Navy Yard in Charleston,” he recalled years later as president.
These days, the shuttered Navy Yard is a beehive of private and government activity as the North Charleston industrial area continues to redevelop. And the Navy’s presence continues to loom large with thousands of highly-trained specialists working at SPAWAR and in other facilities.
Back in 1935, Roosevelt landed in Charleston aboard the USS Houston after a fishing vacation in the Pacific and Caribbean.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | State lawmakers have the power to alter the way the legislature works to make it more representative of all South Carolina and, in turn, boost the potential for compromise and better outcomes for taxpayers.
But to do so, they’ll have to do something that’s very hard – hold their egos and political futures in check by redrawing district lines that are more competitive and less self-serving.
By Marjory Wentworth, contributing editor
Astronomy flourished at the dawn of civilization;
between the Tigris and Euphrates, Babylonian
astronomers watched the skies closely.
We have the records. When heavenly signs appeared,
the ancients were both fascinated and terrified. …
The only clues we’ll give you about this building are that the building may have some relevance on Aug. 21 and it is in South Carolina. Send your best guess to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com — and make sure to include the name of the town in which you live. Please also write “Mystery Photo” in the subject line.
S.C. Encyclopedia | Lewis (or Louis) Reeve Gibbes was born in Charleston on August 14, 1810, eldest of the eight children of Lewis Ladson Gibbes and his wife, Maria Henrietta Drayton. Gibbes attended grammar school in Charleston and Philadelphia, then prepared for college at the Pendleton Academy in the South Carolina upcountry, where he excelled in mathematics and the classics. A student of five languages, he showed an early interest in botany, astronomy, and physics. Gibbes entered South Carolina College soon after graduating first in his class from Pendleton Academy in 1827. For a time in 1830 he was the classics teacher and acting principal at Pendleton Academy. Later that year he enrolled in the Medical College of South Carolina, in Charleston.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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