By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The forced segregation that stained the American South isn’t as far in the past as you may think.
A century ago when your great grandparents were toddlers or were raising their own, lynchings were commonplace. It wasn’t until after World War II that an American president, Harry Truman, ended segregation in the armed forces.
IN THIS EDITION
TODAY’S FOCUS: Management of an epidemic requires surveillance monitoring
COMMENTARY, Brack: Renew commitment to protecting civil rights of all Americans
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston RiverDogs
NEWS BRIEFS: Schools across the state close to deal with coronavirus
FEEDBACK: Send us a letter or two
MYSTERY PHOTO: White flower among azaleas
CALENDAR: Call first before you head out
IN THIS ISSUE:
FOCUS, Morris: Let’s work proactively to build a brighter Charleston future
COMMENTARY, Brack: Dealing with Southern ghosts of the past
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
ANOTHER VIEW, McCoy-Lawrence: Voters aren’t getting voting system they deserve
GOOD NEWS: Remembering a Revolutionary victory, more
FEEDBACK: On a liberal arts education
MYSTERY PHOTO: Mystery box building
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Slavery in South Carolina
CALENDAR: Charleston Carifest to start June 20
Staff reports | Contributing editor Fred Palm of Edisto Island reminds us that the Due Diligence Subcommittee of the S.C. Joint Bond Review Committee will discuss an agreement to build the proposed I-526 extension and whether to lock in the state’s $420 million contribution.
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 Andy Brack, editor and publisher | A teenager almost started to cry Jan. 14 as she read a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Her white peers, normally boisterous, were markedly subdued as they witnessed stark museum displays of what life was like for black Southerners during civil rights struggles.
One thing was clear for more than two dozen Charleston youths on a church trip to learn about the South’s special kind of past apartheid: They had no real understanding about what it was like to live in the Jim Crow South of 60 years ago. They didn’t learn it from textbooks and lessons in school. They had no real concept of the flashes of vitriol, hate and anger that rocked many Southern communities as they wrestled with civil rights and big cultural changes following World War II.
Staff reports | The niece of a celebrated civil rights photographer will be at a special event Jan. 30 at Charleston County Public Library on Calhoun Street. Karen Berman will attend an event at the library at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 30 that celebrates photographs taken by her aunt, Ida Berman, in 1959 on Johns Island as residents were organizing to vote and figure for their rights. A display of photos have been at the library since the beginning of the month.
NINE DAYS LEFT, Cuba photo exhibit: Through Jan. 31. Charleston County Public Library, Calhoun St., Charleston. Charleston Currents’ editor and publisher Andy Brack offers photographic insights into Cuba from a 2015 visit to the country. An exhibition is on display in the Saul Alexander Gallery. Free.
Breaking down barriers: 6 p.m. Jan. 23, Emanuel AME Church, Charleston. Former S.C. Rep. Lucille Whipper of Mount Pleasant and Charleston business leader Linda Ketner will share their experiences breaking barriers in this talk moderated by Patricia Williams Lessane, a cultural anthropologist and the executive director of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
Staff reports | If you want to know more of what life was like on Johns Island as the civil rights movement was blossoming, you should see Ida Berman’s collection of photographs now on display at the Charleston County Public Library, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston.
A celebrated photographer and immigrant, Berman snapped these never-before-seen photos of places and scenes on the sea island from January 1959 include people working at The Progressive Club as well as portraits of civil rights leaders Esau Jenkins, Myles Horton, Septima Clark and others.
Special Jan. 4 event: Candie Carawan, who published the landmark, “Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?” with husband Guy Carawan, will share civil rights stories with Team Backpack journalists 5:30 p.m. Jan. 4 in the library’s auditorium. The book includes statements from Johns Island residents during the modern civil rights movement.
J. Herman Blake: “I truly loved the column you wrote on Septima [Clark] on Friday. I read it over several times. You really caught the essence of her spirit and I was deeply moved.” Also, a comment by Patterson Smith, James Island.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | All South Carolinians – white, black, brown, newcomer and native – can stand to learn more about a real homegrown patriot, the late Septima Poinsette Clark.
The mere mention of her name today invokes reverence in the black community. But white Southerners seem to forget that she was so respected for her work in the civil rights movement that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked her to accompany him to Oslo, Norway, in 1964 when he accepted the Nobel Peace prize.
“In a sort of casual way, he would say, ‘Anything I can’t answer, ask Mrs. Clark,’” she recalled in a 1986 memoir.
From 1916 when she was 18 until she was fired 40 years later with 41 others in Charleston County for being a member of the NAACP, Clark was a teacher, first on John’s Island and then in Charleston, McClellanville, North Carolina, Columbia and again 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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