Tag Archives: Modjeska Simkins School

Modjeska Simkins School opens access to class recordings and course material during pandemic

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The spring session of the Modjeska Simkins School has not gone as planned. Turns out, the student orientation on March 15 was the first and last time the group would meet in person. The extent of the threat posed by the coronavirus in South Carolina was just becoming clear.

The crisis forced our classes online. While the format is not ideal, it does have its benefits, one being that classes are recorded so students can see material they missed or want to revisit. We are offering access to the course readings and class recordings as a gift to our friends and allies, hoping they may educate and inspire in these tough times.

The school’s faculty co-ordinator, Dr. Robert Greene, a professor at Claflin University, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people around the world to take refuge in their homes. The hope of ‘flattening the curve,’ the attempt to get the virus to a manageable level for health care systems around the world, is now underway. With so many people at home, numerous universities and libraries across the world have opened their online archives to everyone who is hungry for knowledge.

“In that same vein, the SC Progressive Network’s Modjeska Simkins School is also opening its virtual doors. Our study guides and filmed lectures offer a rich vein of information about South Carolina’s long history of oppression and hope. Despite the darkness of the pandemic dimming the dreams of many, we hope that you will find our resources valuable to preparing to build a better world after the pandemic has run its course. After all, Modjeska Simkins herself believed both in knowing one’s history, and in making public health among disadvantaged communities an important priority.”

Robert Greene greets students during orientation session March 15.

It has not been the experience students signed up for, but they have adjusted without complaint to meeting on Zoom. In years past, students often stayed after class to talk with the professors and classmates. To make up for that lack of personal interaction, the school added extra sessions for students to ask questions, offer suggestions, and comment on the course so far.

Jacob Twitty said, “I have thoroughly enjoyed it and have learned so much. A lot of the history didn’t come as a surprise — the details — but the Reconstruction era just fascinates me. The more I learn about that, the more I wonder how South Carolina as a state would be different if we had continued in that regard. It’s amazing to see how we far we have gone the other way in spite of the rich history that we have here.”

Lewis Pitts, a reformed NC lawyer who has been a guest speaker at the school since its first session in 2015, is able to attend the entire program this time because he can join on Zoom. “What struck me about the Reconstruction period is that when we actually expanded democracy to include more people, particularly African-American freed slaves, we had a much more progressive agenda. Public education, there are many things white Americans should be thanking that period for. The more we pull the blanket of democracy down to cover all the feet in the bed, the more warmth and the more progress is shown for all of our society.”

“I am really enjoying the course,” Dr. Bernie Gallman said in an email. The scholar of African roots and the pre-colonial advanced culture added, “The course syllabus for all the classes are outstanding.”

The history portion of the session ended on May 18. The remaining classes will be about political theory, and conclude with student presentations of projects they will commit to upon graduation.

• Click here for class schedule and links to course material.
• Click here to access class recordings, updated each week.

The Modjeska Simkins School is a project of the SC Progressive Network. The next session is tentatively scheduled for this fall.

SC progressive community loses one of its own to coronavirus

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Tim Liszewski serves lunch at a Progressive Network conference in 2007.

We were heartbroken to learn that our friend and colleague Tim Liszewski died at his home in Columbia on March 28 of coronavirus, which he likely contracted at an Indivisible conference in Wisconsin. He was 60 years old, and leaves behind two children, Aaron and Rebecca Liszewski.

Tim was to be married in May to his longtime partner, Maris Burton. Instead, she is planning his memorial, which will be held when it is safe to gather. Meanwhile, Maris herself is recovering at the home she shares with her sister, Barb.

After feeling sick for a week and suspecting that it might be coronovirus, Tim was tested on March 21. He was told they would get results in 2-5 days, but it wasn’t until four days after his death that the coroner’s office confirmed that he had tested positive. Maris is frustrated that they did not know sooner so they could warn others with whom they’d been in contact.

Their story lays bare the state’s slow response to the pandemic and lack of transparency in testing and tracking of Covid-19 cases in South Carolina. The governor has yet to issue a stay-at-home order, making ours one of just 12 states without one. Tim, who worked as one of the Network’s ACA Navigators in 2013-2014, would be angered by the way the pandemic is playing out here and in other states that refused to expand Medicaid, as detailed in this story.

We got to know Tim when he moved to Columbia in 2005 from his native Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as director for the Carolina Peace Resource Center, a longtime Network member. He would go on to work for various political campaigns, in South Carolina and out of state, but stayed in touch. The last time we saw him was at our Fair Maps event at the State House on the first day of session to press lawmakers to end gerrymandering in South Carolina.

Tim was mild mannered and big hearted. He lived his values. Alongside Maris, he helped feed homeless people in Columbia through Food Not Bombs, and volunteered regularly at Nickelodeon Theater. In a story in The State about his work helping people access health care, Tim said, “This is not a job, it’s a lifestyle.”

Tim was one of 19 Occupy Columbia protesters arrested in November 2010 after refusing to bow to Gov. Nikki Haley’s order to evacuate the State House grounds. Charges were later dropped, and Occupiers were each awarded a $10,000 settlement for violation of their First Amendment rights.

At a hearing during the Occupy Columbia saga, which played out for months, Tim spoke on behalf of those arrested. “There are lobbyists and people with money who are occupying inside the State House. This was our symbolic representation of us taking back the State House grounds for all of the citizens, not just the citizens with influence and with money.”

Maris Burton, left, and Tim under the Confederate Flag at the State House just before he is arrested along with 18 others.

Tim graduated from the Modjeska Simkins School in 2017. In a blog post about the session he said, “Knowing there are people younger than I am who are actually taking up the cause gives me hope and makes me less angry. Let’s make some change that lasts.”

Network Cochair Kyle Criminger had this to say about our colleague. “A creative, civilly disobedient Occupier of Columbia, a first-rate ‘commandant’ (his word) of the Progressive Network’s efforts with the ACA Health Insurance Marketplace, and a senior regional leader of the Indivisible Project, Tim was an astute community organizer, laser-sharp with his words and with purposeful quips. He always studied and adapted in order to be effective where his feet hit the ground beside his fellow progressives. The social justice movement will miss him.”

The Network sends our collective love to Maris, and to her and Tim’s families.

Maris shared this message: Tim’s family, my sister Barb and myself are overwhelmed at the amazing outpouring of love, respect and kindness you are sharing about Tim (and me). He would be embarrassed at the fuss and then say, “is it true? Do they really mean that?” Yes Tim, you are loved by me and so many more. So thank you all for your words and your “Service in Action” that Tim practiced daily. Our lawn looks amazing, we are being fed, groceries supplied, laundry done! and a continuing offer for other services we will be needing. We feel the love. I am working on getting rid of my virus symptom of “the cough and fatigue” and being well enough to tackle household tasks. Be kind, do good deeds, wash hands and take this seriously. It kills.

In face of pandemic, Modjeska Simkins School retools spring session

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Instead of hugs and handshakes, students gathering for the first day of the spring session of the Modjeska Simkins School were greeted at the door with hand sanitizer and cleansing wipes. As the Palmetto State comes to terms with the growing coronavirus threat, some students opted to join through video conferencing. It is a sign of the times.

Today, after wide criticism for his slow response to the crisis, Gov. Henry McMaster cancelled classes in the state’s public schools for the rest of the month. Colleges across South Carolina have extended their spring breaks and are preparing to move their classes online.

The Modjeska Simkins School has decided to delay its next class for two weeks, and to live stream the rest of the session. “Being online will be a challenge,” said SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey, “but we are looking forward to learning new ways of doing things that will help us expand our distance learning capacity. Eventually, we’d like to make the school available to anyone, anywhere. This will help move us in that direction.”

Dr. Robert Greene (left) and Brett Bursey

The session will be led by Dr. Robert Greene (Claflin University). Joining him will be Dr. Todd Shaw (USC political science and African American studies), Dr. Jon Hale (USC education history), Dr. Alison McCletchie (USC sociology and anthropology), activist Kevin Gray, and special guests. Classes will be held on alternate Monday evenings through mid-July.

The class of 28 is made up of students with varied interests and backgrounds. The youngest is in 10th grade; the eldest is in her 80s. “We are impressed with this class,” Bursey said. “It will be a different experience for these students than those in years past, but we are confident it will be no less powerful.”

For more about the school, see the web site. Follow on Facebook.

June 2: the U.S. vs. Pitts and Bursey

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As part of the Modjeska Simkins School‘s Sunday Social series, the public is invited to hear recovering attorney Lewis Pitts on June 2 at the temporary HQ of the SC Progressive Network, 2015 Marion St., downtown Columbia 4-6pm. Pitts is a dynamic speaker with an impressive resume and a trove of stories from the trenches. He will be joined by his former client and longtime friend Brett Bursey. The event is free and open to all.

•  •  •

Lewis Pitts was so dismayed by the legal profession that, after 43 years of practice, he asked the NC State Bar to allow him to resign. He was disturbed by the growing tendency of attorneys and law firms to put profit before the people they were supposed to serve.

“My resignation is because I see an overall breach by the Bar as a whole of the most basic of professional conduct and ethics such that I do not want be be associated with the Bar,” Pitts wrote in a 2014 letter to the Bar. “I do not mean to be mean or flippant. The ministry of law has been a powerful force in my life and I have had the pleasure of working with many terrific people in pursuit of justice — lawyers and non-lawyers. I want these parting words to stir your minds and hearts into reflection, boldness, and transformational action.”

The case went to the state Supreme Court, where Pitts was granted the exit he sought.

A South Carolina native, Pitts graduated from Wofford College and USC’s law school. He practiced in DC and spent nearly 20 years at Legal Aid of North Carolina, where he founded the statewide children’s unit and fought the schools-to-prison pipeline.

Pitts was Network Director Brett Bursey’s lawyer after he was arrested for threatening President George Bush with a “No War for Oil” sign. (Read about the case in this blog post.)

Lewis Pitts (from left), Network Director Brett Bursey, and attorney Jay Bender outside the federal court house in Columbia, where they led a “free speech pay-in” to help cover court costs in Bursey’s trial.

Bursey and Lewis go way back. Pitts represented the Natural Guard protesters at the Bomb Plant (Savannah River Site), and decided to go to jail with them. He was an attorney in Karen Silkwood’s wrongful death suit, took part in civil disobedient arrests at nuclear facilities around the country, and was lead attorney in the successful civil suit against the Klan and Nazis for the murder of five Greensboro activists in 1979. (Watch “88 Seconds in Greensboro” on Vimeo.)

“From my earliest days as a lawyer, I have been concerned that the role of our profession has been to serve and protect the political and business establishment and not to uphold rule of law,” Pitts wrote in his resignation letter. (Read the letter here.)

He told a Greensboro reporter that there was no single incident that made him want to step away. “It was like the hypocrisy was eating me physically and psychologically.” He called his appeal “a desperate plea” in “some explosive times when the rule of law really needs to mean something. I guess it’s time for our profession to undergo a moral checkup.”

Lewis is in Columbia to teach a class of the Modjeska Simkins School. See excerpt from his 2017 class lecture on the evolution of corporations in the United States on our YouTube channel.

Brett Bursey and Becci Robbins at the Lexington County detention center Oct. 3, 2002, upon his release after being arrested for protesting President George Bush.

What was the secret plan that sparked a civil rights movement?

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As part of the Modjeska Simkins School’s Sunday Social series, on April 28, 4-6pm at 2015 Marion St. Post & Courier columnist Brian Hicks will talk about his latest book, In Darkest South Carolina: J. Waties Waring and the secret plan that sparked a civil rights movement. His remarks will be followed by a group discussion led by Robert Greene, a Claflin history professor and guest lecturer at the Modjeska School.

The talk is free and open to all. Questions? Call 803-808-3384.

Four years before the landmark US Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, a federal judge in Charleston hatched his secret plan to end segregation in America.

Julius Waties Waring was perhaps the most unlikely civil rights hero in history. An eighth-generation Charlestonian, the son of a Confederate veteran and scion of a family of slave owners, Waring was appointed to the federal bench in the early days of World War II. He had coveted a judgeship his entire life, but circumstance and fate denied him until he was 61. When Waring finally donned the robe, it changed everything he’d ever known.

Faced with a growing demand for equal rights from black South Carolinians, and a determined and savvy NAACP attorney named Thurgood Marshall, Waring did what he thought was right: He followed the law, and the United States Constitution. Shaken by the bigotry and backlash that followed each of his rulings, Waring soon had a moral awakening – and decided to set the world right.

In the midst of rebelling against home and heritage, Waring crossed two lines from which there was no return: He abandoned his wife of 30 years and married an intellectual Yankee divorcee, which led to his ostracism from Charleston’s South of Broad society. Then Waring ordered the South Carolina Democratic Party to allow African Americans to vote in its primary – and the entire state damned his soul.

The Ku Klux Klan bombarded Waring with threatening calls, letters and burning crosses. The Charleston newspapers declared war. Demagogue politicians promised to run the judge from the bench – and out of South Carolina. Waring’s ruling against discrimination in voting booths even inspired Gov. Strom Thurmond’s infamous Dixiecrat presidential bid. But the judge wasn’t finished. By 1950, Waring believed he’d found a way to destroy all Jim Crow laws, so long as he could carry out his scheme before he was impeached … or killed.

This is the story of 20th century America, where Harry Truman and Strom Thurmond carried on battles begun by Teddy Roosevelt and Ben Tillman, where a Clarendon County preacher risked his life for equality, and a gentle Charleston teacher showed thousands how to claim their civil rights. This is the story of Judge J. Waties Waring, his incredible life and the country he changed. And it all began in darkest South Carolina.

•  •  •

From In Darkest South Carolina: An early winter storm devastated Charleston the last weekend of November. Tat Saturday, three people died of exposure as temperatures dropped into the teens — colder than it had been along the South Carolina coast in seven years. Pipes burst across the city, leaving many residents without water. One woman was found frozen on the waterfront near the Battery and the Fort Sumter Hotel, where the Southern governors were holding their annual convention.

The next day, 125 people set out from Morris Street Baptist church for a nearly two-mile march to 61 Meeting Street. The walk was not unbearable; the temperature ultimately rose to 48, 10 degrees above the forecast. These people — 100 of them black, 25 white — were led by Modejska Simkins, the Columbia activist and state chairman for the Southern Conference Education Fund. The “pilgrimage” had been her idea to honor Judge Waring and his wife for their dedication to civil rights.

The group walked uncluttered sidewalks along King and Meeting streets for nearly an hour before arriving at the judge’s home. There they found an atypical South of Broad scene: a government car parked beneath a palm tree. An armed marshal casually leaning against the house. It looked like a fortified compound in enemy territory. But the Warings stood outside, near their front door, shaking hands with every one of the pilgrims.

It was a simple ceremony. With the group fanning out on the sidewalk and spilling into Meeting Street, Simkins read a citation that praised Waring for his “wise, just and courageous” work, his understanding of democracy, as well as his dedication to protecting the rights of suffrage and the freedom and equality of men.

“Yet it has been seen that many another, in your place, has found it possible, before obdurate prejudices and customs, to avoid the guidance of the noblest guarantees of our constitution,” Simkins said. “Your own faithfulness in this field, despite environmental discouragements others have bowed to, has been exemplary and heartwarming.”

The judge was moved by this tribute more than any other he’d ever received.

•  •  •

Hicks’ journalism has appeared in national and international publications since 1986, and he has written about Southern history and politics for 30 years. He has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, National Public Radio, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel and in Smithsonian Magazine. His column has won three Green Eyeshade Awards for best commentary in the Southeast from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Hicks is a former South Carolina Press Association Journalist of the Year.

His previous books include Ghost Ship, When the Dancing Stopped and The Mayor. His Toward the Setting Sun and Raising the Hunley were selections of the Book-of-the-Mouth Club, as well as the History and Military Book Clubs.

A native of Tennessee, Hicks has lived in Charleston for more than 20 years.?

New Legacy Project launches podcast by and for SC’s young people

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The SC New Legacy Project, the youth organizing body of the SC Progressive Network, has started a podcast to engage, educate, and mobilize young people in the Palmetto State. To date, they have taped three episodes, although the latest, on the group’s Monument Tour, has not yet been posted.

Although she is quick to share credit, the force behind the podcast is Vikki Perry, a Pamplico, SC, native and graduate of the Modjeska Simkins School of Human Rights, another Network project. She is rightfully excited about the podcast, and shared with us a little about how it came to be and where she hopes it willl go. [Note: for a primer on the New Legacy Project, listen to the last 45 minutes of this episode.]

Chris McLauchlin, Chris Gardner, Dale Joyal, Vikki Perry, Wayne Borders, and Curt Shumate tape an episode of the South Carolina New Legacy Podcast. Photo by Danielle Dandridge.

•  •  •  •  •

First, the Network is impressed with the podcast, and we can’t wait to follow your progress. What was the genesis for it?

While the idea of a podcast has been around for a long time in NLP, we decided to start it right now for a few reasons.

  1. There is a lot of expertise and experience in the room at the SC Progressive Network/NLP. A podcast is a good way of sharing that information around our community. By virtue of location, our group is pretty Columbia-based. We want people outside the Columbia metro to know what is going on, too.

  1. In the last few years, local news coverage has dwindled to a trickle. National companies are buying local news outlets and there is a dearth of coverage of local issues. Everything is national, and in the age of Fox News and Sinclair Media, there is an agenda to a lot of that media coverage. We have an agenda, too, but we’re up front about it and we try to support it with facts and real stories about the people in our community.

  1. We want to build an apparatus for communication that fits into the 21st Century model. Podcasts are an easy entry point and add a sense of community. But maybe someday, we’ll move into videos or some other integrative format to add that same sense of community.

As for who is responsible for this, it is a collective effort. I remember sitting at the Modjeska House [where the group met before it was closed recently for renovation] and saying, “Guys, if you want to do a podcast, stay after the meeting for a little bit.” No one at the table moved. I was like “Okay, this is going to be a thing now.” So we’ve all worked together over the last several months to decide on a format and some topics. I’m really excited about where we’re going to go with this.

Briefly describe the podcast.

The South Carolina New Legacy Project is a South Carolina-focused political podcast that aims to educate, agitate, and organize in our local communities. It is a show that will feature deep dives into policy, local stories, and interviews with people who are making a difference on either a national stage or a local stage or both.

We plan to regularly feature a segment that we’ll call “Corrupting the Youth.” These will be intergenerational interviews where younger activists interview a more seasoned activist about their lives, their work, and how they see what is happening around the state and nation.

What audience are you hoping to reach?

Young progressives or young-at-heart progressives who want to be politically active in South Carolina and don’t know where to start. When you’re a progressive in South Carolina, you can feel isolated and somewhat powerless. For me, finding the progressive network has given me a sense of community and some of that power back. I want us to help foster that same sense of community and give people who can’t come to our meetings because they live in Myrtle Beach or Easley or somewhere else in the state.

We get lost in the cacophony of liberal groups in this state who maybe aren’t doing the same kind of work we’re doing on a local level. The podcast is a very literal way to be heard over the noise.

How often do you plan to record?

Currently, we plan to release an episode every two weeks, but ultimately, we’d like to do something on a weekly basis.

Who are your key collaborators on the project?

I have taken the role of cat herder, organizer, and learning to produce the podcast as I go. Chris Gardner has taken the role of our sound guy, and has composed the theme music that we’re going to use. Wayne Borders loves doing the intergenerational interviews so you’ll probably be hearing a lot of him.

But we have a large collective, and we’ll all be contributing as we go on depending on the topic. Curt, Janessa, Chris, Danielle (our photographer), Daniel, Omari, Dale, and we will pull in people from the broader collective of the Progressive Network as we need their expertise like Sarah Keeling and Kyle Criminger.

What can listeners look forward to in the coming sessions?

For some time now, the New Legacy Project has been working on something called The State of the Youth. We’ve been researching several main areas where the youth of South Carolina are impacted including health care, criminal justice, economics, education, and voting rights. You can definitely look forward to hearing more about that. Education will be coming up in the next few weeks.

But we have some fun topics that we’ll discuss as well like history, barbecue, movies set in South Carolina, colleges, and more.

Our next episode is going feature the Monuments Project and how it came out of the Modjeska School for Human Rights. Curt and I may also talk a little bit about one of the people who are memorialized on the State House lawn. You’ll need to listen to find out who!

Anything you want to add?

First, you can find us HERE and wherever you listen to your podcasts including iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. Search for us under South Carolina New Legacy Podcast.

Second, we take suggestions for topics and stories. If you’ve got anything you want to hear about, we’ve probably got people who can discuss it. Tell us. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our email address is scnewlegacyproject@gmail.com.

Look forward to hearing from you!

 

Public invited to July 23 launch of “History Denied: Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past”

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Book Launch
Monday, July 23, 5:30-7pm
Seibels House and Garden
1601 Richland St., Columbia

Light eats  •  Cash bar
Booklets are FREE!

Join the SC Progressive Network in celebrating the recent publication of History Denied, Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past by Network Communications Director Becci Robbins.

“I learned so much on this project—not the least of which is how little I know,” Robbins said. “The more I dug and read, the angrier I got about my miseducation. It’s been unsettling to know how much history we’ve been denied, and calls into question everything we’ve been taught.”

History Denied is Robbins’ fourth booklet to be funded by the Richland County Conservation Commission. She previously published a trilogy to mark the achievements of three extraordinary South Carolina women: human rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins, gay rights advocate Harriet Hancock, and legal pioneer Sarah Leverette. Those booklets are available free at the Network’s office, and can be downloaded online. The History Denied booklet will be uploaded after the launch.

An unprecedented interracial crowd packs the Township Auditorium in Columbia for the Southern Negro Youth Congress’ 7th annual conference the weekend of Oct. 19, 1946.

“This is a cautionary tale. It centers on the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), a militant, interracial youth movement that thrived against all odds between 1937 and 1949 in the Jim Crow South. Its rise and fall—and the collective amnesia that followed—offers a timely warning about how history is made and unmade, and how that shapes our shared narrative.

While SNYC was based in Birmingham, AL, South Carolina activists played a key role in SNYC’s unlikely success. Early on, Columbia activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins served on its board, and was instrumental in bringing SNYC’s 7th annual conference to Columbia in October 1946.

The three-day event promised a glittering line-up of distinguished speakers—including keynote W.E.B. DuBois and internationally acclaimed Paul Robeson—as well as invited guests from around the world. The ambitious schedule included daytime workshops to hone the organizing skills of the young delegates.

It was an unprecedented gathering, yet one that has largely been forgotten. Only recently has scholarship on the radical human rights movement in the 1930s and ’40s emerged, enriching our understanding of the people who drove it and the critical ground they laid for those who came later.

SNYC is far from the only chapter of history to be whitewashed, distorted, or erased altogether. This booklet offers a few South Carolina examples: the first Memorial Day, celebrated in war-ruined Charleston after Confederates evacuated the city in 1865; the radically democratic experiment that was Reconstruction; the widespread practice of lynchings after Reconstruction’s end; and the conspiracy of silence that followed the 1934 killings of seven striking textile workers in Honea Path.

Becci Robbins

It is no accident that we don’t know our labor history or the darkest truths about the white supremacy built into South Carolina’s very constitution, and that denial carries lasting consequences. Ignorance comes with a heavy price.

This booklet is an attempt to broaden our view of the past, even if it hurts. These stories are painful, but they are also heroic. For every act of oppression, there have been acts of resistance by people willing to risk their very lives to stand for human decency and the promise upon which this country was built. Their struggles and triumphs deserve to be shared, their bravery celebrated, their work continued.

This volume is not a comprehensive telling of South Carolina’s forgotten resisters. The voices and contributions of women, workers, Native tribes, LGBTQ+ Americans, immigrants, and other marginalized communities also are missing or minimized in our textbooks and in the mainstream media. This is simply a reminder that what we’ve been taught has largely been dominated by money, war, and the experiences of white men of privilege. That cheats a whole lot of citizens from knowing that their ancestors played important roles in the making of this state and nation.

SNYC’s story lays bare the very best and worst of America. We’d be wise to know both.”

History Lost and Found: Lessons of the Southern Negro Youth Congress

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To put our organizing work into context and better understand the legacy we’ve inherited, the SC Progressive Network will explore our ancestors’ radical roots at its 20th fall conference on Oct. 22 in Columbia.

Activists from across the state will meet at the Harbison campus of Midlands Tech for a Network membership meeting 10am – 2pm, to tend to internal business, hear updates from member groups about their projects, and look ahead to the upcoming legislative session.

In the afternoon, we invite the public to join us for a symposium with some of the state’s leading activists and historians. Led by University of South Carolina historian Dr. Bobby Donaldson and political scientist Dr. Sekou Franklin, the session will detail the vanguard role that Modjeska Monteith Simkins and South Carolina’s black activists played during the 1940s in the long struggle for civil rights.

After the Network’s meeting, we invite the public to join us for a symposium with some of the state’s leading activists and historians. All events will take place at the Harbison Campus of Midlands Tech.

The afternoon session – led by University of South Carolina historian Dr. Bobby Donaldson and political scientist Dr. Sekou Franklin – will detail the vanguard role that Modjeska Simkins and South Carolina’s black activists played during the 1940s in the long struggle for civil rights.

The meeting marks the 70th anniversary of the 1946 Southern Negro Youth Congress conference held at the Township in Columbia, a little-remembered but historic gathering. (See event program here.) Simkins did trainings at what was then Harbison Junior College for two dozen young blacks, mostly students, who spent 10 days studying black history, politics, civics, world affairs, and organizing techniques.

Simkins helped establish 11 chapters across the state that turned out over 400 members to the October 1946 weekend conference in Columbia. More than 2,500 people, from Birmingham to New York, filled the Township auditorium with the intention of striking a death blow to Jim Crow.

alkbpbhdhidgihgj1945 Socialist Workers Party Pamphlet

It was an impressive gathering. Julian Bond’s father came from Atlanta. Angela Davis’ mother came from Birmingham. The legendary Paul Robeson sang. Labor organizers and Communist Party members came from the north, and delegates came from as far away as Latin America and Africa. Our best notes on the conference come from FBI files that reported 170 participants were white, mostly union and peace activists.

paulrobesonPaul Robeson

Dr. W.E.B. DuBois gave the keynote speech that Sunday at Benedict’s Antisdel Chapel.  The speech, Behold the Land, lifted up as among the nation’s best, rings true today. DuBois called on “young women and young men… to lift the banner of humanity… in the midst of people who have yelled about democracy and never practiced it.”

DuBois rose to national prominence in 1905 with the founding of the Niagara Movement that challenged Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist positions on segregation. He was instrumental in the founding of the NAACP in 1909, and the National Negro Congress and the Southern Negro Youth Congress in 1937.

web_du_bois_1946-1WEB DuBois

The Columbia SNYC conference was the largest human rights event the South had ever seen, with a class analysis of racism and a call for a mulitracial united front. By the time of the Columbia conference, black soldiers were returning from WWII to the hostile welcome of Jim Crow segregation. South Carolina was in the nation’s spotlight for having the last white-only primary, the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party crashing the 1944 national Democratic convention (20 years before the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party), and the blinding of Private Issac Woodard by police at the Batesburg bus station in February 1946.

Erik Gellman’s 2012 book Death Blow to Jim Crow claims that SNYC was more than a precursor to the modern civil rights movement; it was “the most militant interracial freedom movement since Reconstruction, one that sought to empower the American labor movement to make demands on industrialists, white supremacists and the state as never before.”

After WWII, white supremacists used anti-communism to beat back racial equality and labor organizing. We learned in our South Carolina high school history books that “carpet baggers and scalawags induced many of the ignorant and child-like Negroes to turn against the white people,” (Simms-Oliphant) and the Klan arose to beat back the 1870s Reconstruction and save the South.

Seventy years later, white supremacists like Gov. Jimmy Byrnes identified communists as the outsiders leading blacks astray. Simkins was “red-smeared up and down South Carolina,” and iced from the SC NAACP leadership in 1957 by black ministers who chaffed at her strong spirit and militant politics. The red scare effectively ended the militant era of civil rights, and domesticated the modern civil rights movement. That period is now recognized as one led by black ministers beginning in 1954.

DuBois called SNYC’s work the “second Reconstruction,” making the case that the gains of the first Reconstruction had been erased through the whitewashing of history. Now, ironically, 70 years after DuBois bemoaned the erasing of the first Reconstruction, we are studying the lost stories of the second Reconstruction of the 1940s – an astonishing period when the citizenry organized a serious challenge to the status quo – right here in South Carolina.

It is this under-valued people’s history that the Network is committed to lifting up, both at this conference and through its leadership institute the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights. While we’ve only recently discovered the importance of SNYC and Simkins’ deep involvement in that effort, the school is picking up where she left off, teaching similar solutions to sadly similar problems.

SC progressives map strategy for 2016

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Grassroots activists from across the state met Oct. 23-25 at the SC Progressive Network‘s annual fall retreat at Penn Center in St. Helena, near Beaufort. It was a full weekend of networking, organizing, and mapping plans for the coming legislative session – and beyond.

Saturday morning was spent on Network business: reports from the 11 member groups present and updates from our chapters (Charleston, Columbia, Rock Hill and Spartanburg). The body also approved a bylaws change to establish caucuses within the Network so members can organize around issues and specific constituencies. At Penn, participants caucused on racial justice, women’s rights, and young people. They will identify and promote their own priorities, set their own meeting schedules and develop their own leadership.

Graham Duncan and Meeghan Kane, who taught portions the summer session of the Network’s Modjeska Simkins School, led a short course on the people’s history of South Carolina. Brett Bursey talked about the history of Network, and its precursor GROW.

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The afternoon was given over to a strategy discussion for 2016, centered on a four-pronged approach to: educate, agitate, legislate, and litigate. Reps. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (Orangeburg) and Joe Neal (Richland) – members of the newly formed SC Progressive Legislative Caucus – led a session on the state of voting rights. They were joined by George Eppsteiner, staff attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

The main consideration for shaping our strategy about voting rights is recognizing that the system has been rigged by partisan gerrymandering. As the dominant Republican Party has been allowed by the US Justice Dept. to draw legislative districts that create majority-black and white districts, the winners will be chosen in primaries that fewer than 10% of the citizens decide. Accordingly, the Network’s strategy includes grassroots education and agitation around the nation’s least-competitive elections. This educational effort will reflect legislative proposals to restore democracy through creating competitive political districts and other voting methods. These efforts will be capped off by possible litigation challenging the rigged nature of elections.

That session segued into a facilitated discussion on this state’s most insidious problem – institutional racism – and practical ways the Network can address systemic oppression in South Carolina. The panel included Kevin Alexander Gray, Rep. David Mack, and Laura Cahue of Somos SC.

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Participants then broke into work groups, joining issue caucuses or attending workshops on the Network’s Missing Voter Project (led by Kyle Criminger) and Racial Profiling Project (led by Kevin Gray). The Racial Justice caucus and the Immigrant Rights caucus joined the discussion around the Network’s Racial Profiling Project as a “shovel ready” tool to organize against racial injustice anywhere in the state. Laura Cahue reported that Latinos are being targeted by police in traffic stops that often result in jail and deportation. Rep. Neal wants the Network to help coordinate racial profiling complaints from Latino communities to the SC Progressive Legislative Caucus.

Network Caucus contacts:

In the evening, everyone gathered at picnic tables under giant oaks to dine on Gullah Grub’s fried fish and fixin’s, then went inside Frissell Hall to sing along with the fabulous Dave Lippman.

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On Sunday morning, caucus representatives gave reports on their work and next steps. Among other Network business, it was decided to postpone elections for Network officers until our annual spring meeting.

Rep. Cobb-Hunter offered a legislative forecast for 2016, which was followed by discussion on bills we will introduce and promote.

After lunch, the SC Progressive Voter Coalition (SC ProVote), the electoral arm of the Network, met to discuss GOTV priorities and involvement in upcoming state and local races. They were later joined by progressive activist and tax reform expert Mike Fanning, who is running for state Senate (Dist. 17: Chester, Fairfield and York). After a rousing presentation, he earned the group’s endorsement.

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Before adjourning, the body rejected a resolution to support a presidential candidate, as that would break with the Network’s state-based strategic model.

Our thanks to everyone who made time for a very long, but ultimately productive weekend. We will keep you posted about progress with the emerging caucuses and Network chapters.

For information on joining a caucus or creating a Network chapter in your area, or to schedule a Missing Voter Project or Racial Profiling Project training for you or your organization, call our office at 803-808-3384 or email network@scpronet.com.

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See more snapshots from the weekend at Penn Center in our photo album.