Charleston Currents

Good news

FOCUS: Magnolia Gardens to host Friday evening of culture, African food

By Herb Frazier, special to Charleston Currents | A West African chef, a historian who sleeps where the enslaved slept and a global connector who invites strangers to dinner will create “The Transformation Experience” at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

On March 2, the veranda of Magnolia’s main house will be the setting for a dinner to raise awareness that historians, educators and tour guides should not just tell the story of plantation owners. That narrative, however, must also include the influence enslaved Africans had on America’s economy and culture.

by Charleston Currents · 02/26/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

GOOD NEWS: Ketner to get inaugural Homeless to Hope Award

Staff reports | Local businesswoman and philanthropist Linda Ketner will be presented with the inaugural Homeless to Hope Award at March 11 Homeless to Hope Benefit Concert. Sponsored by the Mayors’ Commission on Homelessness and Affordable Housing, the concert will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Gaillard Center Performance Hall.

Ketner
The Mayors’ Commission on Homelessness and Affordable Housing (MCHAH), led by Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie and Summerville Mayor Wiley Johnson, established the award to recognize community members’ enduring contributions to alleviating homelessness.

by Charleston Currents · 02/26/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

FOCUS: A deeper look at Black History Month by a local academic

From the College of Charleston | For Kameelah L. Martin, director of African American Studies at the College of Charleston, it was the Lowcountry’s rich ties to the African-American community and heritage that drew her to join the faculty in fall 2017. Martin, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgia Southern University, a master’s in Afro-American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate in English from Florida State University, came to the College after serving on the faculty of Savannah State University where she taught in the Department of English, Language, and Cultures.

As a literary scholar, Martin, who teaches both English and African American Studies at CofC, is interested in African-American culture, feminism and spirituality – interests which are reflected in her two books, Conjuring Moments in African American Literature: Women, Spirit Work, and Other Such Hoodoo and Envisioning Black Feminist Voodoo Aesthetics: African Spirituality in American Cinema.

“I was most drawn to the history of Charleston and its importance to African-American culture,” says Martin. “My secondary area of study is folklore and the Gullah Geechee culture is a huge part of my interest. I teach about and research the region, so it was very attractive as a place to put down roots – or replant them!”

by Charleston Currents · 02/19/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

GOOD NEWS: Program offers chance to spend night in Old Jail — voluntarily

Staff reports | The Slave Dwelling Project will host a March 4 discussion of recidivism during a at the Old Charleston Jail. Following the discussion will be a chance for listeners to spend the night in the building.

The Slave Dwelling Project uses antebellum historic buildings as classrooms to interpret African American history. The jail was built in 1802 using slave labor and slave-made bricks. Members of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry were held captive there after they were captured during the Assault on Battery Wagner on Morris Island on July 18, 1863.

During the March 4 event, Charleston County Public Library historian Nic Butler will discuss the history of law enforcement in Charleston County. Charleston Interim Chief of Police Jerome Taylor will address the audience on programs that the Charleston Police Department has in place to address the recidivism rate of African Americans. African Americans represent a disproportionate rate of inmates in the American prison system.

by Charleston Currents · 02/19/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

Photo courtesy of Charleston International Airport.

GOOD NEWS: Frontier Airlines adds flights to Austin, Trenton

Staff reports | Low-fare carrier Frontier Airlines last week announced it will begin the only nonstop flights to Austin, Texas, and Trenton, N.J. in April. This announcement comes before the carrier even begins service at Charleston International Airport on Feb. 20 with previously announced nonstop flights to Denver and Philadelphia. Flights to Chicago start in May.

“Even though we have yet to start service, the Charleston community has already embraced our unique brand of ‘Low Fares, Done Right,’” said Scott Fisher, senior director of ancillary revenue and loyalty for Frontier Airlines. “We are committed to making flying affordable for everyone and to be adding new service here before our first flights have even departed speaks to the early support of the community and our partners here at the Charleston airport. With these two new flights, we will now offer low-cost, nonstop flights to five great destinations.”

by Charleston Currents · 02/12/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

A 2014 photo of the bowling alley that is part of the story of the Orangeburg Massacre. Photo by Andy Brack

FOCUS: The Orangeburg Massacre, 50 years ago

By Jack Bass | On the night of Feb. 8, 1968, police gunfire left three young black men dying and twenty-seven wounded on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. Exactly thirty-three years later, Governor Jim Hodges addressed an overflow crowd there in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium, referring directly to the “Orangeburg Massacre”—an identifying term for the event that had been controversial—and called what happened “a great tragedy for our state.”

The audience that day included eight men in their fifties—including a clergyman, a college professor, and a retired army lieutenant colonel—who had been shot that fateful night. For the first time they were included in the annual memorial service to the three students who died—Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith. Their deaths, more than two years before the gunfire by Ohio National Guardsmen that killed four on the campus of Kent State University, marked the first such tragedy on any American college campus.

by Charleston Currents · 02/07/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Focus, S.C. Encyclopedia

A rendering of what the museum will look like. Source: IAAM.

FOCUS: New museum slated to start construction in summer

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Construction is expected to begin this summer for the $100 million International African American Museum on the Charleston site where an estimated 100,000 West Africans disembarked into slavery.

“This is an unusual opportunity for the city … to create something of enormous value to our country,” former Charleston Mayor Joe Riley told members of the Rotary Club of Charleston last week “We American’s don’t understand African American history. It’s important for the nation to be well-grounded in itself, its people, their contributions and their history.”

Charleston was an epicenter of the international slave trade at its peak …

by Andy Brack · 01/29/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

GOOD NEWS: Series to look at healing from cultural trauma

Staff reports | The College of Charleston is offering a semester-long series to give voice to sociological trauma and the ways in which societies, countries and cultures have worked to heal from conflicts born out of issues such as systemic racism, slavery, genocide and political oppression.

According to a news release, the loosely unified series, titled “When the War Is Over: Memory, Division, and Healing,” brings together a collection of public lectures and forums that address historical trauma and the ways in which sites that have experienced such trauma have moved, or might move toward building a sustainable, peaceful community. From slavery and segregation in the United States to the Holocaust and the impact of the native Brazilian peoples upon the arrival of the Portuguese in the 17th century, the series explores the complexities of how groups move on from a collective feeling of trauma.

by Charleston Currents · 01/29/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

GOOD NEWS: Here’s how you can learn about joining a school board

Staff reports | You can learn about what it takes to become a school board candidate or advocate at a special two-hour nonpartisan workshop that will be offered 10 a.m. Feb. 24 by the League of Women Voters.

“The League of Women Voters is deeply concerned about public education and all of our children who are served by public schools in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties,” According to a press release. “Whatever other educational opportunities there may be, the vast majority of our children depend on public schools. Their education is critical to our democracy and our country’s future. Our public schools need dedicated advocates and school board candidates.”

In the tri-county area, more than 113,000 students count on public schools, the league said. “These students are our next generation of teachers, doctors and first responders. They are our future and they require the best we can offer. School board members are critical decision makers in ensuring that all our children can access an excellent education. In 2018, approximately half of the seats on school boards for the four Tri-County districts will be on the ballot.”

by Charleston Currents · 01/22/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

FOCUS: How Martin Luther King can inspire your career

By Ben Fanning, contributing editor | Did you know that Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was originally titled, “Normalcy, Never Again.”? In fact, the first drafts of his speech never included the phrase “I have a dream”?

Turns out the entire “I have a dream” part of the speech was improvised. That’s right…improvised in front of 200,000 people when a supporter yelled out: “Tell them about the dream, Martin!”

He was inspired in that moment and just shared with them what he’d be dreaming about for his generation and generations yet to come. It was a beautiful demonstration of how powerful a dream can be.

by Ben Fanning · 01/16/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Careers, Focus, Views