Charleston Currents

Features

HISTORY: The Post and Courier

S.C. Encyclopedia | Published in Charleston, the Post and Courier is the oldest daily newspaper in South Carolina. The publication’s lineage can be traced through three newspapers. The oldest, the Charleston Courier, began publication on January 10, 1803. It was founded by Massachusetts native Aaron Smith Willington and several partners. The newspaper opposed nullification in the 1830s and secession in the 1850s, ensuring that it would remain in conflict with its chief rival, the pro-states’-rights Charleston Mercury. The Charleston Courier advocated secession in 1860 but counseled moderation during the Civil War. The newspaper was seized by William T. Sherman’s army at the close of the war and was briefly published by two Union war correspondents. In November 1865 control of the paper was turned over to Charleston native Thomas Y. Simons under the auspices of A. S. Willington & Co.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 09/12/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

PALMETTO POEM: Charleston childhood montage

By Jacqueline Johnson

Your garden is as wild as one
of Bearden’s conjure women’s.
Lush with collards, roses, lilies,
hydrangea, figs and japonica.
One summer found me walking
concrete, dusty path to your front steps.

by Palmetto Poem · 09/12/2016 · 3 comments · Features, Palmetto Poem

REVIEW: A Head Full of Ghosts

Reviewed by Maggie Mohr: “A Head Full of Ghosts,” by Paul Tremlblay: The Barretts are a family of four who live in suburban New England. When 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia and resulting medical treatment is ineffective, the family turns to a local Catholic priest for help.

by Charleston Currents · 09/05/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

HISTORY: Loggerhead turtle, state reptile

S.C. Encyclopedia | The loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), a threatened species, was named the state reptile in an act signed by Gov. Carroll Campbell on June 1, 1988. Recognizing the loggerhead as “an important part of the marine ecosystem” and that South Carolina’s coastline provides “some of the most pristine nesting areas” for the turtle on the East Coast, the General Assembly declared that the state’s responsibility is “to preserve and protect our wildlife and natural resources.”

by Special to Charleston Currents · 09/05/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

REVIEW: Jane Steele: A Confession

Reviewed by Lindsay Clark: “Jane Eyre meets Dexter in this darkly humorous crime novel inspired by Charlotte Bronte’s classic. Jane Steele, orphaned as a child, struggles with guilt over becoming a “murderess” several times over, beginning with the accidental death of a predatory male cousin.’

by Charleston Currents · 08/29/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

HISTORY: Ernest F. Hollings

S.C. Encyclopedia | “Fritz” Hollings was born in Charleston on New Year’s Day 1922 to the salesman Adolph G. Hollings and Wilhelmine Meyer. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the Citadel in 1942 and entered the U.S. Army, serving in World War II in North Africa and France. On his return from the war in 1945, Hollings entered the University of South Carolina School of Law. On March 30, 1946, he married Martha Patricia Salley. They had five children, two of whom died young. Hollings received his bachelor of laws degree in 1947 and joined the Charleston law firm of Meyer, Goldberg and Hollings.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 08/29/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

REVIEW: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Hoyt Tuggle: This is a brilliantly poignant personal essay on the plight of poor working class whites, the Scots-Irish of Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Experience through Vance the migration of “hillbillies” from Appalachia to the booming factories of the Midwest during WWII and the years following.

by Andy Brack · 08/22/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

HISTORY: Secession crisis of 1850-51

S.C. Encyclopedia | In the late 1840s the escalating sectional controversy over the expansion of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico set in motion South Carolina’s secession crisis of 1850–1851. In response to the Wilmot Proviso, a congressional proposal to ban slavery in the territory gained in the Mexican War, and the so-called Compromise of 1850, a series of measures maneuvered through Congress in an attempt to pacify both northern and southern interests, South Carolina secessionists brought their state to the brink of disunion.

by Andy Brack · 08/22/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

HISTORY: Resurrection of the S.C. Republican Party

S.C. Encyclopedia | The resurrection of the Republican Party in South Carolina during the second half of the twentieth century was a top-down phenomenon. The first major victory for the Republican Party occurred in 1964. In 1961 Republican U.S. senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, referring to conservative white southerners, stated, “we’re not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964 and 1968 so we ought to go hunting where the ducks are.” Conservative white South Carolinians supported Goldwater for president in 1964 and his states’ rights message, and he carried the state, receiving 58.9 percent of the popular vote. From 1964 to the end of the twentieth century, South Carolina voted Republican in every presidential election except 1976, when Jimmy Carter won the state.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 08/15/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

PALMETTO POEM: Three by Kimberly Simms

Brother’s Mess of Crosses

Converted at 16, when the dummy train
derailed to tip across his pregnant wife.
A holy roller, a Carolina spinner,
a brush arbor caller, an off-key gospel singer.

He took scarlet paint to moonshine jars, boulders,
pine trees, fences, and the neighbor’s pig.
His front plot, he planted a mess of crosses
and built his own monolith with river rocks.

He didn’t pay no mind to section leaders,
howled his only boss was the man in heaven.
He sent 10,000 message bottles down the Reedy
River, dreamed of taking Jesus to Mars and Jupiter.