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PRESERVATION | | | HISTORY | | | EVENTS | | | VISIT | | | RENTALS | | | THE FOUNDATION | |
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2008 List of 30 Most Significant African Americans Click or scroll down to view biographies
Biographies Columbia native Beryl Dakers is regarded as a pioneer within South Carolina’s media industry. For over three decades her spirit and energy have opened doors traditionally closed to women and minorities. Dakers began her broadcasting career in the early 1970s with WIS radio as the first African-American on-air news reporter. She was among the initial African Americans to work for WIS-TV as an on-air personality and producer. A producer, writer, and director for documentaries, Dakers also has hosted and produced weekly art shows. Since 1982, Dakers has served as director of cultural programming for South Carolina Educational Television. The host of "ETV Forum" and "ETV Road Show," Dakers is also active in on-air fundraising. Making South Carolinians more familiar with the range of their historically significant personalities through documentary films is one of this media pioneer’s passions. Her efforts have resulted in a National Association of Black Journalists award and an Emmy nomination for her documentary "Sylvia’s Story." Another of Dakers’ important works, "Makin' a Way Out of No Way: Modjeska Simkins," explores one of the Palmetto State’s most inspiring figures of the Civil Rights movement. A member of the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame, Dakers has been nominated for two prestigious Emmys and was a recipient in 2000 of an Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Award in arts education, the state’s highest honor in the arts. Often recognized and appreciated for her efforts to bring artists together with the public, Dakers serves as a role model for aspiring journalists and community activists.
Born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1857, Celia Dial Saxon grew to become one of the city’s most celebrated educators, serving as a history and civics teacher for fifty-seven years within the its public school system. One of the first African-Americans to be educated at the University of South Carolina during the Reconstruction era, Saxon later established a career in education in which she was absent only three days and never tardy. A member of Ladson Presbyterian Church, Saxon held a religious interest that extended to all churches and their role in promoting a sound community. As a visionary, Saxon championed the needs of the underprivileged and the endangered. When not in the classroom inspiring students, Saxon was heavily engaged in civic improvement efforts, helping found such institutions as the Fairwold Industrial School for delinquent Negro girls; the Wilkinson Orphanage for Negro Children; and the Phillis Wheatley YWCA, home to Columbia’s first African-American public library. Blossom Street School, opened in 1898 as one of Columbia’s earliest public schools and established as a Negro school in 1929, was renamed Celia Dial Saxon School for the Booker T. Washington High School history teacher. Twenty-five years later, in 1954, Saxon was honored again when the Columbia Housing Authority dedicated a new 400-unit complex for Negroes within the Edgewood neighborhood to the community leader and educator. During the ceremonies Saxon was recalled as a “wise counselor and a guiding spirit to many of us,” by fellow educator Dr. C.A. Johnson. At the time of her death in 1935, Saxon was remembered by The State newspaper as “an outstanding educator, leader in civic and religious affairs and one who made a conspicuous contribution to her generation.” A native Charlestonian, Celia Mann was born into bondage at the turn of the nineteenth century. Specifics of Mann’s life in the Lowcountry remain unknown and it is uncertain if she acquired her freedom through manumission or by purchasing it from her Charleston master. Regardless, family tradition claims that upon gaining her freedom Mann walked to Columbia to start a new life. Surviving records in First Baptist Church’s baptism registry suggest she was living in the capital city by 1836. In that year, a woman named Celia, the wife of Ben Delane, a free black with whom Mann is known to have been married, officially became a member of the church. According to a real estate transaction between James Guignard and Delane, Mann’s association with the property at 1403 Richland Street dates to 1843. As a free mulatto living in antebellum Columbia, Mann successfully negotiated a unique and challenging existence thanks to her role as a midwife. Delivering babies for both white and black citizens, she held a prominent status. Through her respected and highly sought after skills she gained economic security, owning land and saving money. At the time of her death in 1867, Mann’s will shows that she owned the property and the house at 1403 Richland Street and that her estate was valued at $1500, or the equivalent of $38,556.00 in today’s dollars. Described by the white owned and run Columbia Phoenix newspaper as “an old and respected colored nurse who had been present at the birth of many of our citizens,” Mann lived just long enough to witness emancipation. Following in the footsteps of their dynamic ancestor, generations of Mann’s descendants remained at her former property for over a century, becoming leaders in local education, church, Masonic, and business endeavors.
James Enos Clyburn Congressman James Enos “Jim” Clyburn, whose 6th District includes a portion of Richland County, is celebrated as one of South Carolina’s most influential politicians and civil rights activists. As Majority Whip for the 110th Congress, the Sumter native is the first South Carolinian and only the second African American to obtain the third ranking position within the United States House of Representatives. Currently the highest-ranking African-American politician, Clyburn is a champion of historic preservation on historic black college campuses, helping institutions such as Benedict College secure grants for various projects while also fighting to preserve minority access and equity at all levels of education. Congressman Clyburn displayed an interest in public service early in life and began a lifetime commitment to civil rights and justice by becoming the president of his NAACP youth chapter at the remarkable age of twelve. Protesting racial segregation, the budding activist participated in demonstrations, marches, and rallies and was selected as the star witness in a landmark civil disobedience case in Orangeburg in 1960 that developed from the arrest of college students including Clyburn and his future wife Emily. The next year, he was arrested and jailed during a march on the South Carolina State House. A graduate of South Carolina State College, Clyburn later served as a history teacher in the Charleston County school system before being selected by Governor John West in 1971 as the first African-American advisor to a South Carolina governor since the Reconstruction era. Clyburn’s skill resulted in his appointment as South Carolina Human Rights Commissioner, a position in which he served four governors until 1992 when he resigned to run for Congress. Respected by his constituents for his strong convictions to his family, his faith and his community, Congressman Clyburn has since been reelected each subsequent term by a substantial margin in the state’s only majority African-American district.
Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. Born in 1946, Columbia native Charles Frank "Charlie" Bolden, Jr. has served this country as a distinguished astronaut, military aviator, and corporate executive. A retired United States Marine Corps officer, Major General Bolden is a 1964 graduate of C.A. Johnson High School, where his father taught and coached football. Denied admission into the then-segregated University of South Carolina, Bolden entered the United States Naval Academy as one of the few African Americans to earn such an appointment at that time. Bolden became a naval aviator in 1970 and proceeded to fly over one hundred combat missions over North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Following service as a naval test pilot in 1979, he entered the National Air and Space Administration’s space shuttle program. A 2006 inductee of the the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, Bolden was one one of the few African Americans working within the agency in 1980. Over the next decade Bolden logged more than 680 hours in orbit, commanding three of four missions aboard the space shuttles Columbia, Discovery, and Atlantis, in which he assisted in deploying the Hubble Space Telescope and commanded the first mission to include a Russian cosmonaut as a mission specialist. Following his NASA assignment, Bolden continued his service in the Marine Corps, holding many distinguished command positions with the Naval Academy, Marine Expeditionary Force, and United States Force, Japan. In 2003, General Bolden retired after thirty-four years in the military. As a civilian he has remained an active leader as a corporate executive, board member, and as a military and aerospace consultant. A renowed public speaker, Bolden seeks to encourage students to remain in school and for African Americans to join the space program.
Cornell Alvin Johnson A Greenville native born in 1882, Cornell Alvin Johnson moved to Columbia when his father became the first minister of Ladson Presbyterian Church. Johnson was educated at Howard School, the capital city’s only school for African Americans at the time. Graduating in 1900, the minister’s son ventured north for further instruction, earning degrees from Charlotte’s Biddle University and Columbia University. Thereafter, Johnson relocated to Oxford, North Carolina where he taught at the Mary Potter School. Fourteen years after leaving Columbia, Johnson returned to join the faculty of his alma mater Howard School as a teacher of English and Latin. Within two years, he was selected as the first principal of Booker T. Washington High School. Under his leadership Booker T., as it was popularly called, earned prestigious recognition by the Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges, which issued it an “A” accreditation rating, making it the first white or black high school in Columbia to receive this distinction. In 1930, Johnson was appointed as the first supervisor of Negro schools in Columbia. In this capacity, he exhibited a tireless commitment to improving the quality of those schools over the next two decades. Upon his retirement, Columbia’s second African-American high school was named in his honor. Instrumental in extending the opportunity of scouting to young African-American boys, Johnson became the first African American recipient in the state of the prestigious Silver Beaver Award, issued to him by the Central South Carolina Council of Boy Scouts. The extent to which this educator, leader, and luminary affected the lives of Columbia’s African-American citizens specifically, and all of its citizens in general, was summed up by The Columbia Record, which estimated his passing in 1970 “meant for Columbia what the death of such leaders as Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver meant to the nation.”
E. W. Cromartie, II Columbia native Ernest W. Cromartie, II has been a life-long civil servant to Richland County, serving as the first African-American elected to Columbia City Council since the Reconstruction era. A lawyer with over three decades of experience, Councilman Cromartie, following receipt of a Bachelor of Arts in marketing from Michigan State University, earned his Juris Doctorate degree in 1971 from George Washington Law Center, graduating cum laude. As a managing partner of the Cromartie Law Firm, which specializes in civil litigation, worker compensation, employment, business, and residential and commercial real estate law. Councilman Cromartie’s service has garnered recognition in many facets of his life. Following his appointment to the State of South Carolina Youth Services Board by Governor Richard “Dick” Riley, Cromartie was awarded the prestigious Order of the Palmetto for outstanding service. Cromartie also has served as Past President of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials and on the Board of Trustees of the Midlands Technical College Education Foundation. On numerous occasions Councilman Cromartie has been elected as the first African-American to represent the State of South Carolina including service as a member of the Board of Directors of the National League of Cities, membership in the Advisory Council of The National League of Cities, and membership on the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Municipal Association. Currently, the councilman serves as President of the South Carolina Conference of Black Local Elected Officials.
Edmund Perry Palmer, Jr. A native of Sumter, South Carolina, businessman and philanthropist Edmund Perry Palmer was born into the funeral profession in 1935. Following in the footsteps of his father, who was the first licensed African-American mortician in the city, Palmer became a licensed mortician himself. A devoted champion of race relations and the arts, Palmer has proved himself to be a selfless and true public servant who serves as a role model for present and future leaders of Columbia and the state of South Carolina. In 1957, after graduating from North Carolina A&T State University and the American Academy of Funeral Service and serving his country in the United States National Guard, Palmer joined the Palmer Memorial Chapel in Sumter. He and his wife, Grace Justin Brooks, moved to Columbia, where they expanded the family business to include a Columbia location in an effort to serve the people of Richland County. Professionally, he has subsequently been recognized for excellence in the field of mortuary services and has held leadership positions with the South Carolina Morticians Association and the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association. Palmer was presented with the Humanitarian of the Year award by the United Way of the Midlands in 1998, becoming the first African-American to receive this prestigious award since it was established in 1984. One year later, he received the Order of the Silver Crescent from the State of South Carolina, bestowed upon him by Governor Jim Hodges. Further community service includes board positions on the Indian Waters Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Benjamin E. Mays Academy for Leadership Development, the Columbia Urban League; Heathwood Hall Episcopal School; the Columbia Museum of Art, the United Way of the Midlands, and the South Carolina State Museum. A staunch supporter of minority business development, Palmer is a member the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame for his devotion to public service.
Fannie Phelps Adams A resident of Columbia’s Wheeler Hill neighborhood all but seventeen days of her life, Fannie Phelps Adams has inspired generations of citizens through her commitment to education. Born in 1917 at the home of her maternal grandmother in Laurens, South Carolina, Adams was the eighth of ten children who witnessed first-hand segregated life during the Depression. Like her siblings, Adams assisted her mother, Mary Lou Wilbur Phelps, a laundress and seamstress, with domestic work performed for white Columbia families. Working each day after attending classes at Booker T. Washington High School, Adams came to appreciate the potential that education held for bettering her conditions. Following graduation, Adams remained in Columbia despite receiving a scholarship to attend Johnson C. Smith University. Instead, for the next three and a half years she made the daily trek to Allen University after its president compelled her to stay through further financial assistance. Upon earning her degree, Adams launched what would become a career in education in which she would serve Richland County School District One for more than forty years, touching the lives of countless numbers of students and teachers alike. Securing a teaching position at Booker T. Washington Heights Elementary School in 1938, Adams, barred from attending the University of South Carolina began graduate classes at South Carolina State University, where she later earned an MS in 1953. In 1943, Adams became a social studies and English teacher at her alma mater, Booker T. Washington High School. Later she became its guidance counselor, assistant principal, and acting principal until the school closed in 1974. Adams completed her final five years with Richland School District One at A. C. Flora High School, where she retired in 1979. The recipient of countless awards and accolades, Adams, in her own words, “continues to serve as a guiding light to her family, friends, church, and community with God as her guiding light.”
Born in Chapin, South Carolina, Frederick Benjamin Schumpert spent his youth working on his father’s farm tapping pine trees for their turpentine business. Capitalizing on that experience, the budding entrepreneur moved away from his father’s farm to start his own business – a logging and sawmill company that would eventually grow to be one of the most successful African-American businesses during the days of segregation and Jim Crow laws. In 1939, Schumpert relocated his business to Columbia, establishing the F. B. Schumpert Lumber Co., Inc. at a twenty-three acre site on River Drive. Primarily a wholesale company that contracted with the government and the building industry to manufacture framing lumber, Schumpert’s business provided tremendous employment opportunities for local African Americans. Considered an industry expert, Schumpert had successfully navigated the tumultuous times of the Great Depression by laying a solid foundation and creating the “staying power” necessary to grow his business thereafter for nearly seven decades. In 1948, the Afro American newspaper, one of the only sources of positive African-American news at the time, featured Schumpert on their cover as one of the most successful black businessmen in South Carolina, with his company conducting $300,000 ($2,529,600.00 in 2007 terms) worth of business. A community and social justice advocate, Schumpert was very involved in his local community and an energetic supporter of both Chapin’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, where he served as chairman of the deacon board, and Benedict College. A man of integrity with an impeccable reputation, Schumpert built an incredible business overcoming substantial barriers and obstacles placed before African-Americans at the time.
Having courageously broken down barriers, Holly Hill native George A. Elmore later died a finically and physically broken man. Born in 1905 during Jim Crow rule, Elmore moved to the capital city in 1922 and successfully ran the Waverly Five-and-Dime store on Gervais Street and moonlighted as a photographer and taxi driver with Blue Ribbon Taxi Club until reprisals for his Civil Rights endeavors led to his downfall. On February 21, 1947, Elmore took his place in history. Barred the previous year from voting in the South Carolina Democratic Party all-white primary, the Columbia businessman responded by filing a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina in a landmark case known as Elmore v. Rice. His legal team, led by Thurgood Marshall, who subsequently became a United States Supreme Court Justice, also included Robert L. Carter and Harold R. Boulware. Elmore and his team prevailed as United States District Judge Waties Waring ruled five months later in their favor. The decision effectively prevented South Carolina Democrats from running the state’s primaries as private clubs any further.
Grace Jordan McFadden Born in 1943 in Sacramento, California, Dr. Grace Jordan McFadden moved to Columbia in 1971 and began a career as an instructor that would span two decades at the University of South Carolina. She would later become a pioneer at the University as the first African-American woman not only hired by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at a professional level but also to receive tenure. As founder and director of the University’s Oral History and Cultural Project in 1986, McFadden made USC a critical resource for information on the Civil Rights Movement, particularly in terms of the stories of African-American South Carolinians. Two years later she accepted the roles as Director of the university’s African-American Studies Program. In this capacity she presented several conferences and symposiums on African-American issues, including the 1988 “Conference on the Contemporary Desegregation of the University of South Carolina” that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the school’s integration in the twentieth century. McFadden inspired scores of students and colleagues with her passion and commitment to education. Her devotion earned her the honor of Professor Emerita in the Department of History and African-American Studies in 1994. A superior educator and devoted member of the First Calvary Baptist Church, Dr. McFadden was a founding board member of the Eau Claire Cooperative and was inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 1995. She was also the recipient of the African-American Women Achievement Award from the South Carolina Council of Black Newspapers, the prestigious Order of the Palmetto, and the personally-treasured Johnnie McFadden Award for Outstanding Service to Youth given by the renowned Benjamin Mays Academy and presented in 2003 by her husband for whom the award is named.
Harold R. Boulware, Sr. Irmo native Harold R. Boulware, Sr., born in 1913 to educators Robert Walter and Mabel Hughes Boulware, is one of South Carolina’s most famous African-American attorneys. A man known for fanning the flames of change in the 1940s would become one of the lead attorneys in one of the most famous cases in civil rights history. A graduate of Harbison Agricultural Institute where his parents taught, Boulware traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina where he earned his undergraduate degree from Johnson C. Smith University. Appreciating that the legal system could improve the plight of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South, he moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue an advanced degree at Howard University Law School. When he was not studying, Boulware waited tables to pay for his education. Determined to make a difference in the lives of African-Americans in South Carolina, he returned to Irmo to embark on a lifetime commitment to fighting for civil rights and justice. Within a year of passing the South Carolina Bar in 1940, Boulware was selected as chief counsel for the South Carolina branch of the NAACP. In this capacity, he had a national impact on the Civil Rights movement, leading the efforts to gain equal pay for equal work among African-American educators. He joined Thurgood Marshall as one of the plaintiffs’ lead attorneys in the Clarendon County Schools desegregation class action case, Briggs v. Elliot, which later combined with other suits to form the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case that culminated in the desegregation of public schools throughout the United States. Boulware’s pioneering efforts continued, and in 1969, he was selected to serve as an Associate Judge within Columbia’s Municipal Court system. Six years later, Judge Boulware transferred to service with Richland County, where he eventually presided over cases heard by the Fifth Judicial Circuit. After a brilliant legal career filled with pioneer work within the area of civil rights, the Honorable Harold R. Boulware died in 1983, four short months after ill health forced him to retire.
Isaiah DeQuincey Newman A Darlington native born in 1911, Isaiah DeQuincey Newman was a life-long humanitarian and one of the state's most important civil rights leaders who worked to bring peace and justice to all South Carolinians. A wise leader who preferred negotiation to confrontation, Reverend Newman, along with other civil rights leaders, achieved relatively peaceful change in South Carolina. Newman attended Claflin College in Orangeburg and later Atlanta’s Clark College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934. He earned a divinity degree in 1937 from Gammon Theological Seminary. Reverend Newman returned to home state as an ordained minister. He moved to Columbia and founded two United Methodist Churches –Frances Burns and Middleton-Rosemont. During his over forty years of service to United Methodist churches in Georgia and South Carolina, Newman held key positions with their South Carolina Conference and its General Conference, while becoming close to prominent South Carolina politicians including governors McNair, Riley and West, Senator Hollings, and Congressman Dorn. These, and other state leaders often sought the Reverend’s counsel on divisive racial issues. Reverend Newman’s public service went beyond spiritual leadership to hold an upper-level management position with the South Carolina Department of Social Services and a board position within the Department of Health and Environmental Control. An active member in the South Carolina branch of the NAACP, “I.D.,” as he was often called, held several leadership positions within the organization including serving as its field director through the volatile 1960s. Willing to stand up against segregationist laws, Newman led many demonstrations across South Carolina, including the infamous Myrtle Beach State Park "wade-in," and challenged the entire political structure of the state. In 1983, Reverend Newman achieved great political acclaim by becoming South Carolina’s first African-American state senator since 1887. Within two years, this revered activist died, leaving a legacy of personal sacrifice and service to all South Carolinians.
Isaac Samuel Leevy Born in 1876 in Kershaw County, South Carolina, Isaac Samuel “I.S.” Leevy would escape the poverty of his youth to become one of the most prominent and influential African-American business leaders of the early twentieth century in Richland County. At a time when his achievements in business and community were unprecedented among his African-American counterparts in South Carolina, Leevy often remarked, “just a little bit of hope can keep a man alive.” Leevy established himself in Columbia in 1907, after receiving a degree from Hampton Institute. For ten years, he operated a tailor and merchant shop in the capital city. Over the next two decades Leevy and his wife Mary, owned and managed a department store. Additionally, from 1930 until 1932, the Leevy family maintained a furniture store. Other entrepreneurial endeavors included the family’s funeral home, which was established in 1932, and the first black-owned service station in the city, located at 1831 Taylor Street. In keeping with the family’s interest in providing quality burial service for the area’s African-American population, Leevy also established Lincoln Cemetery, named for Abraham Lincoln.
Edwin Roberts Russell A Columbia native with a passion to build things, Edwin Roberts Russell was born in 1913 at a time when black Columbians’ expectations and aspirations typically were curtailed under Jim Crow segregation. Within this repressive environment, Russell sought to pursue carpentry for his livelihood. Encouragement from family members led him to pursue higher education, a decision that would culminate years later in the young man’s work on the world’s first atomic bomb. It was in his hometown that Russell began his college training, graduating with honors from Benedict College with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1935. A Master of Science degree from Howard University and doctorate work in surface chemistry at the University of Chicago followed. In Chicago Russell joined other scientists in the military’s top-secret Manhattan Project where he was tasked with separating plutonium from uranium ore for producing the world’s first atomic bomb. Despite serving on the prestigious research team in defense of our country, Russell failed to escape the harsh realities of racism and segregation that plagued the South. When faced with potentially living in segregated housing within a Tennessee atomic research plant, Russell refused, opting instead to remain in Chicago where his efforts and those of others resulted in the creation of bombs that led to Japan’s defeat and unconditional surrender in August 1945. In 1947, Russell returned to his hometown of Columbia after accepting a position at Allen University as a chemistry professor and science division chairman. A career of remarkable scientific work has yielded a host of honors and United States patents for the scientist who reminds students “success is setting one’s mind to achieve the seemingly unreachable goals.”
Isaac Samuel “I.S.” Leevy Johnson Columbia native Isaac Samuel “I.S.” Leevy Johnson is a leader who has proved a luminary in law, business, politics, and community service. A graduate of Benedict College, Johnson also holds both an associate’s degree and a Bachelors of Science degree in Mortuary Science from the University of Minnesota and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law, from which he graduated in 1968. In an historic moment Johnson became, in 1970, one of the first three African-Americans elected to the South Carolina General Assembly since Reconstruction. In the mid 1980s he was recognized for his excellence in law by the South Carolina Bar, which elected him its first African-American president, and by Ebony magazine, which celebrated him as a leader among his peers on the United States’ “legal front.” Ultimately, Johnson would earn all of the most prestigious awards available to lawyers including the Durant Award from the South Carolina Bar, the Compleat Lawyer Award from the University of South Carolina School of Law, the John W. Williams Award from the Richland County Bar, and the Matthew J. Perry Medallion from the Columbia Lawyers Association. Additionally, The State newspaper in 2001 deemed him as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” in the area of criminal defense. In 1995, Johnson assumed the leadership of Leevy Funeral Home, a generations-old local business founded by his grandparents I.S. and Mary Leevy. Under his guidance, the family business continued to flourish, as it had for decades, as one of Columbia’s main African-American mortuaries. Within a few years, Johnson expanded the business, opening its Lower Richland Chapel to serve families in the Lower Richland community. In 1999, in recognition of his commitment to public service, Johnson received the highest civilian award available to South Carolina citizens, the Order of the Palmetto, presented by Governor Jim Hodges.
Charleston native Isaac “Ike” W. Williams dedicated the majority of his life to the pursuit of equal rights for African-Americans, including serving over fifteen years on Congressman Jim Clyburn’s Congressional staff. Upon Williams’ death in February 2008, Congressman Clyburn celebrated his trusted friend who played a major role in his successful 1992 Congressional campaign as “a champion of civil rights” and “a skilled politician” who “never ran or held political office.” Activism began at an early age for Williams who, as a teenager, became involved in the NAACP. From 1963 through 1967, Williams served as president of the organization’s South Carolina Conference Youth Division and from 1965 to 1967, he held the position of chairman of its National Youth Work Committee. While in college at South Carolina State, Williams was an active leader in the desegregation initiative to grant equal access to public accommodations to African-American citizens. Williams’ participation in protest demonstrations led him to jail seventeen times, all the while heightening public awareness as to the Civil Rights Movement’s legitimacy. From 1969 until 1983, Williams worked as the South Carolina NAACP’s Field Director, a role in which he had a significant impact in many ways. By establishing the organization’s Annual Freedom Fund Dinner, Williams effectively bolstered the state branch’s yearly income by hundreds of thousands of dollars. While in office, Williams also led efforts to have the State of South Carolina establish Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a legal holiday.
Reverend James Miles Hinton Born in 1891 in North Carolina, the Reverend James Miles Hinton spent much of his life as a businessman and minister fighting for civil rights and justice for all African-Americans in Columbia. Moving to the capital in 1939, Reverend Hinton was elected as president of the city’s branch of the NAACP. Within two years, he became an important catalyst in reorganizing the state’s NAACP chapters after assuming the role of president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP. By the time he stepped down in 1958, Hinton had successfully grown the state’s branches from thirteen to eighty. Reverend Hinton created the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party in an effort to help overthrow the then-segregated, all white Democratic primary in the state. In 1947, he delivered a speech at Allen University that stressed the centrality of education in improving the conditions of African-American life. Criticizing inadequate facilities, poor teacher-to-student ratios, and discriminatory bussing practices, Hinton challenged attendees to become involved in potential solutions. That speech inspired Reverend J.A. DeLaine, a Clarendon County schoolteacher, to organize a petition calling for change. DeLaine’s action began what would evolve into the Briggs vs. Elliott case that led to the historic Brown vs. Board of Education lawsuits of 1954 and 1955. Often threatened for his outspoken views, Reverend Hinton suffered endless harassment from those opposed to his views, was kidnapped once in Augusta, Georgia and had shots fired into his home in 1956. Ending his career as pastor of Columbia’s Second Calvary Baptist Church, Reverend Hinton later died in Augusta in 1970, leaving a legacy of Civil Rights activism and advancement for all peoples.
Legendary for his rhetoric and political energy, the Honorable Kay Patterson was born in 1931 in Darlington, South Carolina. Educated at Sumter’s Lincoln High School and Claflin College, he went on to serve his country in the United States Marine Corps during the early 1950s. Following military service, Patterson earned a degree in social science from Allen University and a master’s degree in education from South Carolina State College in 1971. Patterson left his mark on education in the state’s capital city during his fourteen-year career as a teacher at W. A. Perry Middle School, C. A. Johnson Preparatory Academy, and Benedict College. After teaching, he served the South Carolina Education Association as a UniServ Representative for sixteen years until his retirement in 1986. In addition to looking out for the educational well being of his fellow citizens, Patterson assumed active leadership roles in the spiritual wellness of others through service with Waverly’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. In 1974, this dedicated educator was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives where he served for over a decade. In 1983, Patterson broke down a century-old barrier when he became the first African American to be selected to serve on the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees since Reconstruction. Two years later, the people of the 19th District elected Patterson to the South Carolina Senate where he continued to represent his constiuents in Richland County. Retiring in 2008 after thirty-four years of public service in the South Carolina General Assembly, all but ten as a state senator, Columbia's Kay Patterson is celebrated for his outspoken support of the state’s underrepresented citizens.
Emancipated slave, author, and minister Jacob Stroyer was born in 1849 on Headquarters Plantation, the site of today’s Kensington Mansion, in Lower Richland County. One of fifteen children, Stroyer was the son of an enslaved South Carolinian mother born on the same plantation and a father born in Africa. Enslaved until he was in teens, Stroyer worked in the stables and carpenter’s shop on the plantation, then owned by the Singleton family. During the Civil War, Stroyer served with other enslaved workers repairing Confederate fortifications at Sullivan’s Island and Fort Sumter. In 1864, he was injured by a shell burst during the Union bombardment of Fort Sumter. Following the war, Stroyer attended schools in both Columbia and Charleston. In 1870, he moved to Worchester, Massachusetts where he became a minister and deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. While serving as pastor for the Salem Colored Mission in Salem, Massachusetts in 1879, Stroyer wrote My Life in the South, recalling his years in slavery. A compelling memoir, Stroyer’s narrative is a rare, first-hand account of slavery in Richland County that is used today by educators throughout the state when studying antebellum and Civil War plantation life. Reprinted several times, Stroyer’s book is a major work of local history and a timeless chronicle that informs Richland County residents of their past.
Larry Francis Lebby Few persons have enjoyed international acclaim at the stroke of a pen. Artist Larry Francis Lebby is one such person. A Dixiana native, Lebby is widely recognized for his choice of unique media, the most storied of which is ink from a common ballpoint pen. The roots of Lebby’s artistic skills lie within the hours he spent as a youth drawing images in the sand. Growing up during the days of segregation, the nascent artist matured without the benefit of attending regular art classes until he attended Airport High School. Lebby went on to attend Allen University and the University of South Carolina, where he honed his artistic skills, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1973 and 1976 respectively. Lebby's work, captured in ballpoint pen and other more mainstream media such as watercolors, lithographs, oils, and acrylics, reflects the physical and cultural nuances of South Carolina. Three short years after his first art show at the University of South Carolina in 1973, Lebby found his work hanging in the White House during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Since then, the talent of this local artist has been displayed within the Smithsonian Institution, the Vatican, the United States Senate chambers, and the United Nations. Lebby’s representations of educator and theologian Dr. Benjamin Mays and civil rights advocate Modjeska Simkins hang prominently within the South Carolina State House, and many individuals within the entertainment industry have become avid collectors of his artwork. Lebby has worked to improve the access students have to cultural enrichment through the arts serving on the boards of the Governor’s Task Force for the Arts and the South Carolina Arts Commission.
Orangeburg, South Carolina native Luther J. Battiste, III exemplifies excellence in the legal profession, leadership in the business community, and a strong commitment to public service. With an inclination for learning at an early age, Battiste has exhibited a strong desire to use his knowledge and skills for the betterment of his community and for the advancement of African-Americans throughout his educational and professional endeavors. While attending the University of South Carolina, Battiste blossomed in his activist interests where he became an avid participant in student government activities. His efforts culminated in both the election of the first African-American student body president of a largely white student population and the ultimate creation of the university’s African-American Studies Program, whose proposal he co-authored. Battiste’s graduation in 1971 marked the first instance of an African-American receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the university’s international studies department. In 1974, after obtaining a law degree from Emory University, Battiste returned to Columbia and joined the law firm of Johnson, Toal & Battiste, which became the first racially integrated law firm, at the partner level, in the state of South Carolina. Noted as an exceptional trial lawyer, Battiste subsequently was recognized for his skill and commitment to the field through a number of appointments. He is the first African-American President of both the Richland County Bar Association and the South Carolina Trial Lawyer’s Association. Battiste became an elected city official in 1983 as one of the first two African-Americans to serve on Columbia City Council where he ultimately served for fifteen years including two terms as Mayor Pro Tempore. In 1999, the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame inducted Battiste for his commitment to excellence and public service.
Matthew James Perry, Jr. Matthew James Perry, Jr., civil rights lawyer and prominent federal district court judge, was born in 1921 during an era in which life for African-Americans often was circumscribed by Jim Crow rules and restrictions. A Columbia native whose role in major twentieth-century cases led to much acclaim, Judge Perry served as a trailblazer rising to prominence in the city, state, and nation as an illustrious lawyer and judge. Following graduation from Booker T. Washington High School, Perry served in the United States Army during World War II. Following military service he earned degrees in business administration and law from South Carolina State College in 1948 and 1951, respectively. Perry’s impact in the legal profession, particularly in cases concerning Civil Rights, cannot be overstated. Through his leadership, blacks in South Carolina achieved new levels of freedom and equality. Representing African-Americans in the quest for integration of public recreation and educational facilities, Perry triumphed. One of his most celebrated successes involved the battle to integrate Clemson University in 1963, forcing the school to admit Harvey Gant, its first African-American student. In 1979, he was apointed U.S. District Court judge by President Carter becoming the first African-American in South Carolina's history to receive such an honor. Previously, President Ford made Judge Perry the first African-American lawyer from the Deep South to be appointed to a federal bench with the United States Military Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. During his esteemed career, Judge Perry has received numerous honors and accolades including the prestigious Order of the Palmetto, South Carolinian of the Year, and the NAACP’s William R. Ming Advocacy Award. In 2003, Judge Perry was honored by having the recently completed federal courthouse erected on Arsenal Hill bear his name.
Matilda Arabelle Evans Born in 1872 in Aiken County, Dr. Matilda Arabelle Evans was the first African-American woman in South Carolina licensed to practice medicine. Having received advanced education from Ohio’s Oberlin College and the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, Evans returned to her home state to promote the benefits of health and hygiene. Throughout her career Evans left a profound impact on her fellow citizens who benefited from her genuine concern, care, and charity. Evans' impact on the welfare of Columbia residents was widespread and multifaceted. Her survey of black school children's health within the city served as the basis for a permanent examination program throughout the state’s entire public school system. By founding the Columbia Clinic Association, which provided health services and education, and ultimately extended the program by establishing the Negro Health Association of South Carolina, she educated families throughout the state on proper health care procedures. Serving both white and black patients alike, this medical pioneer practiced obstetrics, gynecology, and surgery, charging only nominal fees and paying house calls to those unable to go to her. Evans often exhibited tremendous generosity by caring for patients in her own home until 1901, when she established the Taylor Lane Hospital, the first African-American hospital in the city of Columbia and a training school for nurses. Undaunted when the building was destroyed by fire, she started another, larger facility, St. Luke’s Hospital and Training School for Nurses, which closed in 1918. Additionally, Evans ran her own farm; founded a weekly newspaper, The Negro Health Journal of South Carolina; created a program of recreational activities for underprivileged boys; raised eleven children; and was an active member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Modjeska Monteith Simkins Considered the “matriarch of civil rights activists of South Carolina,” Modjeska Monteith Simkins was born December 5, 1899, the eldest of eight children. For more than six decades, at a time when it was not only difficult to be a person of color but also to be a woman, the Columbia native devoted her life to fighting against injustices placed upon African-Americans. The granddaughter of emancipated slaves, Simkins received her elementary, secondary, and collegiate education at Benedict College. Following graduation, in 1921, she helped found one of the oldest African-American banks in the country, Victory Savings Bank, and she taught at Columbia’s Booker T. Washington High School. Ten years later Simkins entered the public health field as the Director of Negro Work for the South Carolina Anti-Tuberculosis Association, a position that launched her into statewide reform work. Crediting her parents’ fearless nature and their determination to help those less fortunate, Simkins become involved in the mid 1920s with the South Carolina Interracial Commission; the Southern Negro Youth Conference; and the South Carolina branch of the NAACP, for which she served as secretary for fifteen years playing an active role in its growth throughout the state by adding one hundred new branches. As a successful businesswoman and civil rights activist, Simkins wielded tremendous political power throughout the state and helped to win several key elections; however, she never personally attained public office. Never having, as she described it, a “consciousness of color,” she was supportive of anyone whose civil liberties were violated. The South Carolina General Assembly memorialized her with a portrait in the State House upon death in 1992, thereby honoring this "great humanitarian" for being the "fearless outspoken champion of the oppressed." Nathaniel Jerome Frederick An Orangeburg County native, born in 1875, Nathaniel Jerome Frederick came to be a dynamic force within the fields of law, education, and journalism during the Jim Crow era in South Carolina. Having received an AB degree from Claflin College in 1899, Frederick first taught school at Cokesbury later that same year. Not long thereafter, Frederick sought higher education at the University of Wisconsin, where in 1901, he earned a degree in history and Latin. One year later, in 1902, he became the principal of Columbia’s Howard School, Columbia’s only public school for blacks at the time. Further service to education included the presidency with the South Carolina Colored Teachers Association. While in education, Frederick began studying law. Admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1913, Frederick left the field of education within five years to pursue law full-time. Frederick’s most notable case occurred in 1925 when he won a South Carolina Supreme Court decision that would have allowed for a retrial of Lowman family members charged with murdering a white Aiken County sheriff’s deputy. Three days after the order was issued, the Lowmans were dragged from their jail cell and executed. By the end of his career in 1938, Frederick had tried more cases before the South Carolina Supreme Court than any other African-American lawyer in history and had a success rate higher than of any of his black colleagues. Accomplished in education and law, Frederick also gained distinction within the field of journalism. In 1925, he founded The Palmetto Leader, a black weekly paper from which, he as editor, advocated for civil rights and promoted involvement within the African-American community. Following his death in 1938, the paper remained the voice of black South Carolinians until 1959.
Sarah Mae Flemming Born in 1933 just a few miles north of what is now downtown Eastover, Sarah Mae Flemming, until recently, was among the ranks of largely unsung heroes who helped propel the civil rights movement. Seventeen months before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955, this little-known local civil rights heroine refused to obey a similar segregation ordinance on a bus in Columbia. While Rosa Parks’ arrest for sitting in the “white” section of a bus led to the Montgomery bus boycott and guaranteed her place in history, Flemming’s earlier run-in has largely faded from the public’s memory. The granddaughter of slaves, Flemming and her six siblings grew up on her family’s own land. She made her place in history the morning of June 22, 1954 when, as a black maid, she boarded a crowded bus in Columbia, taking a front seat vacated by a white passenger on the then-segregated city bus operated by South Carolina Electric and Gas Company (SCE&G). After Flemming sat down, the white bus driver assaulted the 20-year-old domestic worker, blocking her way and accusing her of occupying the bus’s “whites-only” section, established by law to be any place on the bus in front of blacks. Encouraged by several well-known civil rights activists and attorneys, Flemming filed suit against SCE&G. Although rebuffed in federal court in Columbia, eventually the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that segregated seating in Flemming's case was unconstitutional, a ruling that created a precedent that played an important role later in the Parks case. In 1955, Flemming’s victory was big news in African-American newspapers across the nation. However, the greater story is that this young African-American woman, despite the harsh realities of southern Jim Crow politics, took a seat that forever changed the face of civil rights in the South.
Richard Samuel Roberts A native of Fernandina, Florida, born in 1880, Richard Samuel Roberts is celebrated as one of South Carolina’s most accomplished photographers. While a federal employee with the United States Post Office, Roberts became a self-taught artist adept at capturing the true nature of his subjects while revealing their individuality in non-stereotypical images. While in Florida he founded Fernandina’s Gem Studio, where he spent much of his time skillfully recording people’s lives through a camera and glass plate negatives. In 1920, Roberts and his wife Wilhelmina Williams Roberts, relocated to her hometown of Columbia where he continued both his work as a federal employee and as a part-time photographer. For over fourteen years Roberts would perform his duties as chief custodian at the post office from 4:00 a.m. until noon, at which time he would spend hours at his small studio space at 1118 Washington Street in the heart of downtown Columbia’s African-American commercial district. Here he documented Columbia blacks during the Jim Crow era. From his frames would come the enduring likenesses of citizens typically under or unrepresented in history. Ultimately, Roberts spent much of his time in South Carolina’s capital city behind the lenses of a camera documenting a time period and a segment of Columbians that otherwise might have gone forgotten without his photographs. The aesthetic genius and humanity of Roberts’ work was lost for generations until 1977 at which time family members discovered more than 3,000 glass plate negatives located within the crawlspace of the artist’s former Wayne Street home. Their chance discovery and subsequent donation of the collection to the University of South Carolina’s South Caroliniana Library led to the resurrection of the forty-year old photographs and consequently the legacy of one of the greatest African-American photographers in the state’s history.
One of the capital city’s most successful early African-American businessmen, William Manigault of Kingsville, South Carolina co-founded Manigault-Gaten-Williams Undertakers and Embalmers in 1911 at 712-714 Main Street in downtown Columbia. Twelve years later, in 1923, Manigault and his wife, Annie Rivers Manigault, incorporated the establishment as Manigault’s Funeral Home. As one of the few African-American business ventures on Main Street, the Manigault family’s endeavor served as a beacon for the black community during the oppressive Jim Crow era. During the 1900s, William Manigault also founded the Congaree Casket Company, which is credited with having employed more African Americans than any other black-owned business in the state of South Carolina. The Manigaults’ business acumen inspired the eldest of their children, Anna May Manigault-Hurley to assist in managing the family business following the death of her father in 1940. Anna May received a degree from New York’s Renouard School of Embalming and became one of the very few women in South Carolina to be a licensed embalmer. Active in numerous civic organizations, Anna May Manigault Hurley helped organize the local NAACP branch and remained active in the community including her church until her death in 1976. Relocated from Main Street to 2229 Two Notch Road in 1959, the family business was renamed Manigault Hurley Funeral Home, thereby reflecting the leadership of Anna May Manigault-Hurley and her son Anthony Manigault Hurley. Today, Michelle Manigault Johnson represents a fourth generation invested in the success of one of Columbia’s longest operating African-American businesses. In addition to being astute business leaders, these four generations have served the community in the fields of education, politics, law, religion, and social work, each reflecting a pride in their heritage and an interest in their fellow citizens. |
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