Modjeska Simkins School Spring Session 2025
Classes are held every Monday (except Memorial Day) 6:30–8:30pm, streamed live from GROW, 1340 Elmwood Ave. in Columbia. Students can opt to meet in-person in Sumter and St. Helena Island to watch remotely as a group.
Sunday Deep Dives (listed in blue) are held at 4pm online and in-person. The programs are open to the public.
March 1
Orientation, 1–4pm: Introductions, class protocols, course outline, and expectations. Students are strongly encouraged to attend in person.
March 3
Class 1 — Stolen land. Stolen people. Stolen History.
Guest Presenter: Professor Chris Judge, USC Native American Study Center
The first half of the class will be led by Chris Judge, who will cover early human history in this part of the world we now call South Carolina. Dr. Robert Greene II, lead instructor of the Modjeska School, will take us from the advanced civilizations of ancient Africa up to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (Later in the semester, Mr. Judge will host Sunday programs to expand the discussion to include modern history and culture of Native South Carolinians. Details to be announced.)
Dr. Burnette Gallman, a nationally renowned expert on ancient Afrika, will host a series of classes for a deep dive into a fascinating and often-obscured history. These classes are on Zoom only, and are open to the public.
Sunday, March 9
Deeper Dive with Chris Judge and T. Lilly Little Water on SC Native history. To join on Zoom, register HERE.
March 10
Class 2 — South Carolina shapes a nation. Colonial era to statehood
This session reveals how the slave owners who represented South Carolina during the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia ensured that the new nation would allow slavery. The state’s delegation of plantation owners also managed to see thousands of enslaved families counted in the Census as 3/5th of a white person in order to increase the state’s power in Congress and in the Electoral College.
March 17
Class 3 — Nullification, Disunion, Secession, War
The Nullification Crisis was the first serious conflict of the Southern agricultural economy, dependent on enslaved labor versus the industrializing Northern economy. Much of today’s history mirrors the years preceding Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, when the nation was riven over slavery. South Carolina took the point in defending the “peculiar institution,” and continued to weigh in well above its natural weight on the wrong side of the national devide.
Sunday, March 23
Deeper Dive with UVA professor Dr. Justine Hill-Edwards, author of Origins of Capitalism in Colonial South Carolina and the recently released Savings and Trust: The rise and betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank. Hill-Edwards’ critically acclaimed work offers key context for understanding the economic plight of the formerly enslaved, racial capitalism, the racial wealth gap, and reparations. To join on Zoom, register HERE.
March 24
Class 4 — Reconstruction
Guest Presenter: Dr. Vernon Burton, SC native and Emeritus professor at Clemson and the University of Illinois and expert on the Reconstruction era
More than 600,000 died in the four years of war following Citadel cadets’ opening fire on Fort Sumter in 1861. By the end of that year, thousands of enslaved people were freed in the Lowcountry. By 1865, a majority of the state’s slave population was freed. It was a bright moment in history that came to a swift and violent end.
Sunday, March 30
Deeper Dive with Fergus Bordewich, nationally acclaimed historian and author of Klan War, a 2023 publication detailing the 1871 use of the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause and the arrest of hundreds of white terrorists in South Carolina. Bordewich captures the Klan violence that threatened to overwhelm the entire state. It was so bad that legislators were afraid to leave the capital to return to their homes. Mr. Bordewich will be in-person at GROW. To join on Zoom, register HERE.
March 31
Class 5 — “Redemption” of white supremacy
Just after the Civil War, whites in South Carolina were seeing their fortunes “redeemed” by the terrorism of organized racist violence. Some 150 years before the January 6 rioters were convicted under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th amendment, in 1877 more than 600 white terrorists in Upstate South Carolina were rounded up and jailed under the same charges. The history textbook used in the state’s schools between the 1840s through the 1970s called Reconstruction a worse tragedy than the war and praised the Klan for redeeming civility.
April 7
Class 6 — The Constitution of 1895 rolls back the gains of Reconstruction
Guest Presenter: Dr. Jennifer Taylor, Assistant Professor of Public History at Duquesne University
The 1895 Constitution restored white supremacy, codified racism and was never ratified by the voters — yet it remains the law of our land. While slavery was illegal, white supremacy and restrictive Black Codes defined reality in the old South. For this class, Dr. Robert Greene II will be joined by Dr. Jennifer Taylor, who earned her Ph.D. at USC.
Dr. Taylor is a public historian specializing in museums, oral history, and digital history. She is assistant professor of public history and the history department’s internship coordinator at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Her book, Rebirth: Creating the Museum of the Reconstruction Era and the Future of the House Museum is available now in hardback and paperback for purchase through the University of South Carolina Press.
April 14
Class 7 — Jim Crow settles in, socialism rises, labor organizing and resistance to war brings on a Red Scare. Labor historian Dr. Kerry Taylor is our guest presenter.
April 21
Class 8 — It can’t happen here, can it? A “gangster for capitalism” exposes a fascist coup attempt of Wall Street and the continuing devolution of democracy.
Sunday, April 27
Deeper Dive with Armand Derfner, nationally renowned civil rights attorney on the racist rulings of the US Supreme Court. Recently published in Justice Deferred, co-authored with Dr. Vernon Burton.
April 28
Class 9 — South Carolina’s militant human rights movement of the 1940’s, with Dr. Erik Gellman, author of Death Blow to Jim Crow, the Rise of Militant Civil Rights.
Sunday May 4
Deeper Dive: The Cost of the Vote, George Elmore and the Battle of the Ballot with author Carolyn Click.
May 5
Class 10 — Separate and unequal; the legal fight to end segregation began in South Carolina. Dr. Robert Greene II will be joined by Cecil Cahoon and Gabbi Zurlo.
Sunday, May 11
Modjeska Monteith Simkins – a closer look.
May 12
Class 11 — Losing hearts, minds, and empires
May 19
Class 12 — Feminist & SC LGBTQ+ resistance then and now with guests Dr. Ed Madden and Dr. Annie Boiter-Jolly
May 26
Memorial Day — CLASS WILL NOT MEET
June 2
Class 13— Social/political theory
Sunday, June 8
Deeper Dive: Screening of the 2009 documentary Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre with historian and noted photographer Cecil Williams
June 9
Class 14 — Rise of the New Right and Left
June 16
Class 15 — Effective citizenship in a plutocracy
June 23
Class 16 — Living our values and building community
June 28
2pm, Graduation!