By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Not enough praise can be heaped on state Rep. Jenny Horne, R-Summerville, for her moving, emotional plea on Wednesday night that refocused House colleagues after hours of debate on removing the Confederate flag off of the Statehouse grounds.
By Andy Brack | In the midst of the pall cast over the state following the Charleston church massacre, you might have missed last week’s Miss South Carolina pageant.
Ten days after the shootings that left nine dead and shocked the world, the show went on in Township Auditorium in Columbia. What came out of it highlights the stuff South Carolina is really made of.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The S.C. General Assembly put the Confederate battle flag in a place of prominence on the Statehouse grounds. Now after nine deaths in the horrendous Charleston church shooting, the legislature must take it down.
Imagine the feelings of thousands who had to pass the flag Wednesday in Columbia to pay their last respects to state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the slain Jasper County Democrat and pastor of the historically black church.
Mark Lawrence of Charleston on Sunday signed a “Charleston United” canvas filled with hundreds of names. It was set up on the sidewalk along Calhoun Street under the entrance to Emanuel AME Church where nine members were shot and killed in what authorities are investigating as a hate crime. The tragedy shocked the world. But unlike some communities that erupted […]
By Andy Brack | Most South Carolinians don’t know a lot of out-of-the-closet, vociferous racists. They’re probably around, just like they have been since two people who didn’t look like each other first met. But in our society — here and in other states — they generally live on the fringes.
CHARLESTON, S.C., June 18, 2015 — As I headed to bed Wednesday night, a white gunman shot and killed nine people in an historic black church in the center of town just four blocks from where I used to live. Unaware of the evil, sleep came quickly.
But in the wee hours, the ping of a text from an Australian colleague woke me. I didn’t want to read it and tried to go back to sleep. But after tossing and turning, I read the text, only to learn the heart-wrenching news about what was going on a few miles away. I was dazed. Several instant reactions percolated and struggled to the surface:
Watch a cool Boeing video with an almost vertical takeoff of a 787; plus a Statehouse Report excerpt.
S.C. Encyclopedia | Established on March 16, 1778, All Saints Parish comprised the Waccamaw Neck of what came to be Horry and Georgetown Counties. In 1721 the peninsula became part of Prince George Winyah Parish, but separated from the rest of the parish by the Waccamaw River, it remained isolated and sparsely settled for decades. Because they could only reach […]
By Andy Brack | Middleburg Plantation in Berkeley County has been a sanctuary since I arrived in Charleston in 1988. Featuring the oldest wooden house (1697) south of Virginia, Middleburg transferred last week to a businessman who is expected to breathe new life into it, just as the Charleston family of a college friend did after buying it in 1980.
This past Saturday, a few days after the 325-acre plantation sold, I returned a key to the front door that I thought was lost, but found on a key ring on a last visit on May 31. I showed my daughters the window where a British general scratched his name when his troops occupied the plantation during the Revolutionary War. I showed them an upstairs room where a girl about their ages etched a window to show she lived in the room from 1898 to 1902.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Are there any sacred or special places in South Carolina that are safe from developers?
Sure, there are parks and land protected by owners, but it seems developers generally have the upper hand whenever there’s a way for somebody to make a buck — whether it’s to build another subdivision that will bloat sprawl in urban areas, add yet another hotel in a tourist area or pack another mega-mansion as close to the beach as possible.
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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