South Carolina

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3/30/2023
  

  Gullah Geechee of Sea Islands Fight for their Post-Slavery Legacy

  by DeNeen L Brown

  The Gullah Geechee people were chosen for enslavement in the Sea Islands because of their experience cultivating rice in Africa, and maintained a distinctive culture with strong African elements through slavery and emancipation. Development and gentrification threaten that legacy today. 

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  3/23/2023
  

  SC Barbecue Restaurant With History of Civil Rights Rejection in News Again

  In 1964, Piggie Park Barbecue defended its owner's choice no to serve Black customers by claiming racial integration violated his religious beliefs, a claim the Supreme Court later called "patently frivolous." 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  2/16/2023
  

  Nikki Haley's Confederate Flag Revisionism

  by Kevin M. Levin

  "Hopefully, Haley understands that a presidential bid means that she is no longer sitting in a room with the Sons of Confederate Veterans."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/15/2023
  

  Nikki Haley's Confederate Flag Story

  The former South Carolina governor, now once again a presidential candidate, has claimed credit for taking the Confederate flag off of the state house. A timeline shows she was often more conciliatory to the powerful pro-Confederate constituency in the state. 

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  2/14/2023
  

  HBCUs and the 1950s Red Scare

  by Candace Cunningham

  South Carolina officials were able to use the purse strings to coerce public HBCU administrators to expel student activists. When private HBCUs became centers of sit-in organizing, state legislators turned to accusations of Communism. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  4/8/2022
  

  Why Legislators Want to Fire All of University of South Carolina's Trustees

  Legislators have challenged the board's handling of a presidential search and the campus budget, among other concerns. 

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• SOURCE: The State (SC)
  1/21/2022
  

  Legislators: Come See How I Use 1619 Project in My Classroom Before You Ban It

  by Woody Holton

  South Carolina's H. 4343 bill would impoverish the history education legislators claim to value. Could an invitation to observe how the demonized 1619 Project is used as a teaching tool change any minds? 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/8/2021
  

  The Shocking Saga of the Murdaughs of South Carolina

  "People with power and money in such tribal regions can retain their hold on their ways — and their communities — for a long time. But corruption never strays far from the prideful and the powerful, especially among those who inherit privilege."

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• SOURCE: Bitter Southerner
  8/17/2021
  

  Who Owns Uncle Ben?

  by Shane Mitchell

  "Why would anyone preserve a crop, no matter how flavorful and aromatic, with such a disturbing heritage?" Shane Mitchell examines why.

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• SOURCE: Vox
  5/20/2021
  

  Why Firing Squads are Making a Comeback in 21st-Century America

  South Carolina's proposed return to execution by firing squad reflects the facts that, while the Roberts Court is very protective of capital punishment, it is increasingly difficult for states to acquire the drugs needed to perform lethal injections. It remains to be seen if firing squads will turn public opinion against capital punishment. 

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• SOURCE: USA Today
  5/3/2021
  

  Teacher Appreciation Week: In a Tough Year, These Educators Stood Out

  Clemson historian Rhondda Thomas is among the history teachers lauded for excellence – for work to memorialize the Black people who were enslaved by the university or employed under exploitative conditions of convict labor or Jim Crow. 

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• SOURCE: USA Today
  3/12/2021
  

  Rice is a 'Frequent Visitor' at Tables in the South, A New Cookbook Digs Up the Complicated Way it Got There

  Food historian and chef Michael Twitty examines the cross-cultural and transatlantic history of rice in Southern cooking and culture. 

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• SOURCE: Go Upstate
  3/16/2021
  

  Digging into the History of the Former Dixie Shirt Textile Business in Spartanburg

  Founded by an immigrant Jewish family who moved to Spartanburg from New York City, the Dixie Shirt Company connected the histories of American Jews, labor, industry, and war mobilization in the South. Furman historian Diane Vecchio uncovered the story as part of a plan to redevelop the site. 

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• SOURCE: WIS-TV
  3/9/2021
  

  SC Lawmakers Announce Legislation to Protect Monuments Statewide

  "Democratic Representative Seth Rose says the controversial monuments like Ben Tillman, who was the former governor and known racist, need to come down."

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• SOURCE: Columbia Post and Courier
  2/16/2021
  

  Veteran Journalist Donates Trove of Civil Rights-Era Research to University of South Carolina

  “I think that’s what I find amazing. Even in terms of the curriculum in the state of South Carolina, that those kind of moments are not necessarily common knowledge, where you have an Orangeburg Massacre,” Crump said. “No pun intended, it’s almost like an educational blackout.”

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/10/2021
  

  The Attempted Insurrection was Only Part of the Right’s Anti-Democratic Playbook

  by Melissa DeVelvis and DJ Polite

  The overthrow of Reconstruction in South Carolina involved a symbiotic relationship between white political leaders and a loose coalition of armed white vigilante groups. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/17/2020
  

  Despite Everything, People Still Have Weddings at ‘Plantation’ Sites

  Despite claims by many estates that weddings and events pay for educational programming that addresses the history of slave labor on the property, many still debate the ethics of using plantation properties for celebrations. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/29/2020
  

  The Persistence of Segregation in South Carolina

  The Supreme Court's artful directive to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" invited many school districts to do so as slowly as possible. Historian Millicent Brown was the first Black student to integrate a white high school in Charleston, South Carolina and has researched a book about the experiences of similar students. 

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• SOURCE: Greenville (SC) Post and Courier
  8/17/2020
  

  Clemson Discovers Graves of Dozens of People Enslaved by John C. Calhoun

  “My research shows that Black lives hardly mattered at all at Clemson until after desegregation, and the discovery we made in this burial ground tells me that Black deaths mattered even less,” Dr. Rhondda Thomas said Monday. “The thing that I found was that Black labor mattered the most on this land where Clemson was built.”

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• 7/3/2020
  

  Abolition Movement Historian Ethan Kytle Discusses Confederate Monuments and Teaching Younger Students about Slavery

  by James Thornton Harris

  "I don’t think it is fair for a scholar like me to tell a community what sort of monuments it should put up. This should be a local decision—and one that takes into account the perspectives of the entire community, which was not the case with Confederate monuments."