Merll Clyburn Truesdale died in the first hour of Earth Day, April 22 — a fitting date for the longtime environmental and anti-nuclear activist. He was 64.

The lifelong Columbia resident was the only child of the late Eve Slaughter Truesdale and Lucius Clyburn Truesdale. A 1973 Spring Valley H.S. graduate, Merll studied political science at Midlands Tech, where he served a term as student body president.

He was well read and a history buff, a radical thinker who loved and loathed politics, a harmonica-blowing bluesman with a deep and eclectic appreciation of music. He loved cold beer and red wine, and was an esteemed judge at the annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

Merll was part of the “bucket brigade,” taking up donations for George Wallace’s 1968 presidential campaign. And in 1980, he worked to get the Wallace’s campaign manager and repentant racist, Tom Turnipseed, elected to US Congress. He was a VISTA volunteer during the Carter Administration, and regularly held court at Group Therapy in Five Points.

Merll helped organize meetings that led to the establishment of GROW, the Grass Roots Organizing Workshop in Columbia. He was among a group of hippies that renovated an old, roofless building behind the ball park on Bluff Road, and set up shop in 1977. GROW was a self-sustaining headquarters for South Carolina’s radical activists, running a café and a print shop (Harbinger Publications), and serving as meeting space for a host of political and social justice groups for more than 20 years.

Merll helped establish Columbia’s first food bank, and volunteered at the GROW Food Co-op on Bluff Road that served Lower Richland for nearly four decades. He also did Columbia distribution for POINT, an alternative monthly news magazine published out of the GROW building between 1991 and 2001.

Over the years, GROW housed activists and friends down on their luck, but Merll was the only full-time resident, occupying an upstairs room until the building was sold in 2000.

While Merll never married, he had a family of friends he collected over the years and sustained across several states. He was also dog father to pit bull rescues Winston, Ruby, and Grendel, who were schooled in “puppy dialectics.”

Special thanks to Brad Hubbard and Michael Lowe for ensuring Merll was loved and well cared for during his years at Heartland Rehabilitation Center.

Friends and fans will gather on Saturday, April 27, to celebrate Merll’s life with a potluck between 6-8pm in the backyard of the Modjeska Simkins House at 2025 Marion St., downtown Columbia. All are welcome, including children. Bring your stories and a dish or beverages to share.

If so moved, donations in Merll’s name should be made to any no-kill animal shelter in the Midlands.

Playing for U.S.C. Alliance For Peace on Nov. 30, 1987. Featuring Donald Joe Bennett, Michael Moon Heart Davis (Bass), Ward Croft (Drums) and Merll Truesdale (Blues Harp).

SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey makes the case for ending gerrymandering in South Carolina. The Network’s plan is unlike other redistricting proposals on the table. Watch and share this short video.

As we head into the new year, we want to hear from our members and allies so we can better meet your needs and interests. Please take a few minutes to let us know how we’re doing and how we can improve.

Take our brief, anonymous suvey by clicking HERE.

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Thank you!

On Giving Tuesday, a day designed to encourage mass charitable giving, please support the SC Progressive Network, the state’s oldest and only homegrown coalition of grassroots activists.

At 22, the organization has the capacity to effectively advance legislation that makes our state a more just and equitable place to live. Rather than treating the symptoms of South Carolina’s political and social ills, the Network studies and works to provide remedies to a system that puts private profit over public interest. And rather than coming to life only during election season, our advocacy work is ongoing and led by local organizers.

Your donation will help the Network educate, agitate, legislate and litigate for reliable voting machines, an end to gerrymandering, and remedies for political corruption. DONATIONS also support our projects, including the civic campaign DemocraSC and the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights, a leadership development institute for emerging activists in South Carolina.

As a member-driven nonprofit, we rely on our family of individual donors. If you can support us financially, we promise to put your donation to good use. If you have time or talent to contribute, we welcome that, as well. To help, call 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.

Thank you!

Marjorie Hammock and Kyle Criminger
Co-Chairs, SC Progressive Network

While the results of the midterm elections are still unclear, there should be no dispute about who really lost: the voters.

From elections corrupted by money and gerrymandered districts, to faulty voting machines and unnecessary photo-ID laws, to parties using fear and outdated playbooks to mobilize their increasingly polarized bases, voters continue to be victimized by a broken system.

A bit of good news is that the election confirmed the value of the SC Progressive Network‘s strategy of civic engagement and long-term, grass-roots movement building led by people who understand this state’s history and its players. Over 22 years, we have grown a community of activists committed to addressing the root causes of our democratic rot, and mapping a better path that serves all of South Carolina, not just the wealthy, white, and well-connected. We do this every day of the year, not just during election season or legislative sessions.

While we found it a challenge to meet all the volunteer opportunities this election cycle offered, we did an impressive job of registering and mobilizing voters in targeted communities, starting relationships with individuals and organizations that we expect to strengthen in the coming months and years.

Our nonpartisan Missing Voter Project (c-3) and our individual membership’s (c-4) work this year again focused on what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the greatest of all injustices: the inequality in health care.” While the MVP went after unregistered voters, both efforts cited the state’s rejection of Medicaid expansion to cover a quarter-million of its most vulnerable citizens.

We did deep demographic work on registered voters being denied Medicaid funding, and crafted a message to them specifically. We printed 30,000 side-by-side comparisons of the gubernatorial candidates’ positions on expanding Medicaid, and distributed them in neighborhoods with densities of minority voters who had their health care stolen. We mailed 10,000 card to the three House districts that were won by the smallest margins in 2016, and made nearly 30,000 robo-calls to young black registered voters who didn’t vote in the 2016 election.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a founding member of the Network, recorded a call that went to our targeted voters. (You can play the call below.)

We invited recipients to call the Network for more information. Some 130 young black voters called, and spoke to Network Co-chair Omari Fox. “I was surprised by the amount of people in the dark about Medicaid expansion and their potential for health coverage,” Fox said. “Our democracy is sick, and our civic engagement can remedy that. I’m more determined than ever to educate, agitate, and organize.”

Omari Fox (left) and Col. Tim Pearson work to register and mobilize voters at the Columbia Housing Authority’s Fall Festival.

Our most notable electoral win can be attributed in part to the 5,258 cards we mailed to voters in House District 121 letting them know that their health care is being denied by the current governor. J.A. Moore, the young black Democrat, beat Samuel Rivers, the legislature’s only black Republican, by 455 votes (3 percent) in a majority-white district. Moore was not involved in our voter mobilization campaign, nor were any of the other candidates who may have benefited from our work.

The Network also trained volunteers to help protect the vote in South Carolina on Election Day. Network Director Brett Bursey offered this summary just hours before the polls closed on Nov. 6.

In the last few months, the SC Progressive Network’s nonpartisan Education Fund registered hundreds of SC voters, educating them on Medicaid expansion and what’s at stake in the midterm elections. The outreach primarily targeted the 203,000 registered voters of color whose health care was denied by the current governor.

We printed and are distributing 30,000 cards comparing the gubernatorial candidates’ positions on Medicaid expansion. We are mailing thousands of cards to voters who fall into the Medicaid gap, and will be making 30,000 robo-calls to advise them to vote on Nov. 6.

To date, we have spent nearly $9,000 but have raised just $6,500. Unfortunately, some of the people and entities that had promised to help fund our effort did not follow through. We need an additional $2,438 to get the job done. Can you help?

Support our work on voter mobilization by clicking DONATE. (Donations are not tax-deductible.)Omari Fox (left) and Col. Tim Pearson do voter education and mobilization at the Columbia Housing Authority’s Fall Festival.