Tag Archives: SC Progressive Network

Noted Charleston activist calls “History Denied” a must-read

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Jim Campbell, a highly regarded human rights activist and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, has been a gift to the SC Progressive Network since the group’s founding in 1996. The organization has benefited mightily from his years in the trenches – as a Marine and as a social justice warrior. (Campbell’s papers are housed at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture in Charleston.)

Becci Robbins and Jim Campbell at the SC Progressive Network’s 2016 fall conference.

We sent him a copy of our new booklet, knowing how familiar he is with the people and history it covers. In return, he copied us on an email he sent to his comrades across the country. His endorsement is a true honor.

Campbell wrote, “I’ve just read a copy of the SC Progressive Network‘s recently published booklet, HISTORY DENIED: Recovering South Carolina’s Stolen Past by Becci Robbins. Its content is a substantive introduction to the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) and the vanguard radical labor organizing among interracial youth in the severely segregated South between 1937 and 1949. Specifically, this tells of a landmark Congress convened in Columbia, South Carolina in October of 1946. This event had in active participation such Freedom Movement notables as local South Carolina Youth Leaders in addition to Paul Robeson, Herbert Aptheker, Dorothy and Louis Burnham, Esther [Cooper] and Jim Jackson, Louise Patterson, Sallye Davis, Jack O’Dell, South Carolina’s Modjeska Simkins and the Congress’ keynote speaker, W.E.B. DuBois. His keynote speech, BEHOLD THE LAND, has been a ‘must read’ for all young activists ever since.

This landmark booklet is also a ‘must read’ for today’s activists as both struggle inspiration and primer on our long civil rights movement.”

The booklet was reviewed by Jeffrey Collins at the Associated Press.

Jim Campbell speaks at a Network retreat at Penn Center.

GET YOUR COPY OF HISTORY DENIED

Download the e-version of History Denied here. (You can also download three earlier booklets on three phenomenal SC women Modjeska Monteith Simkins, Harriet Hancock, and Sarah Leverette.)

Copies of History Denied are available at the Network’s office in the historic Modejska Simkins House, 2025 Marion St., downtown Columbia, SC. One copy is free; additional copies are $2.50 each. To order by mail, click here. To order bulk copies, call our office at 803-808-3384.

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.”

Allen University chooses Modjeska Simkins book for campus “read along”

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To celebrate Library Week, on April 11 students from Allen University took turns reading from a booklet about Modjeska Monteith Simkins that the SC Progressive Network published in 2014. Students led what they called a “read in,” and also held a campus-wide book presentation contest. Some 200 booklets were distributed free to students in the weeks leading up to the event.

“As an HBCU in Columbia, South Carolina, we chose Modjeska Monteith Simkins: A South Carolina Revolutionary because of the outstanding leadership qualities she demonstrated throughout her life,” wrote a university spokeswoman in a message inviting our participation.

Network Director Brett Bursey, who worked with Modjeska for 18 years, challenged the students to get involved in moving the state toward social, political, and economic justice.

“It was so gratifying to see students gather together to remember Modjeska’s extraordinary life,” said Becci Robbins, the Network’s communication director and booklet author. “She would have loved it.”

In its recent third printing, the booklet includes a new section on Modjeska’s involvement in the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which held a leadership training school at Allen University in 1947. You can download the booklet HERE.

Quinn sentence highlights need for voter restitution law

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Former Rep. Rick Quinn on Monday was sentenced by Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen to probation, community service and fined $1,000 for misconduct in office. The Republican represented District 69 in Lexington County before he was indicted and suspended from the House in April.

Petitions requesting that Quinn pay the cost of the special election that will be required to replace him were presented to Judge Mullen before the sentencing hearing. According to State Election Commission spokesperson, Chris Whitmire, the estimated cost to Lexington County taxpayers to hold the special election is around $17,000. State taxpayers will be responsible for an additional $36,000.

The sentencing doesn’t sit well with those left to foot the bill.

“I’m a proud Republican,” said John Frierson, a longtime Lexington resident who voted for Quinn. “Mr. Quinn let all the voters in his district down. This is not a partisan issue; I don’t think it’s right that the victims should have to pay for the damage he has done.”

District 69 resident and Executive Director of the SC Progressive Network Brett Bursey submitted a petition to the court citing the state statute (17-25-322) that requires the court to consider restitution to the victims of criminal acts. “We’re disappointed that Judge Mullen didn’t see fit to apply the restitution statute to Mr. Quinn’s criminal conviction,” Bursey said, “but we understand the pressure judges face in sentencing legislators who elect them.”

The failure to seek restitution for the cost of replacing convicted legislators underscores the need for legislation introduced a year ago in the General Assembly. The Network’s Education Fund developed the policy that became S-533 prior to the indictments of Rep. Quinn and Sen. John Courson. The bill would require prosecutors to request the cost of special elections as restitution for convicted politicians who are removed from office.

“We are getting bipartisan support for requiring the prosecution to put restitution before the judge as part of the sentence,” Bursey said. “This insulates a  judge who may be up for re-election before the legislature from making the call herself.”

Money in SC Politics forum video

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If you missed our roundtable at USC’s School of Law on Feb. 6, you can watch it here. Panelists included Lynn Teague, Vice President, League of Women Voters of SC; John Crangle, Govt. Relations Director, SC Progressive Network; Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg); Sen. Mike Fanning (D-Fairfield); Rep. Gary Clary (R-Pickens); and Sen. William Timmons (R-Greenville). Marcurius Byrd with the American Constitution Society at USC law school opened the program, which was moderated by Network Director Brett Bursey.

To read about anti-corruption bills we are tracking and backing, click here.

See our photo album of the event on Flickr.

SC State House elections are nation’s least competitive

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Lawmakers and advocates to pose solutions at Feb. 6 public forum in Columbia

South Carolina has the least competitive elections in the country, according to a recent study that concluded only 6 percent of legislative races in the Palmetto State offer voters a viable choice of candidates.

The National Institute on Money in State Politics used three measures to determine the competitiveness of state legislative races, gauging the monetary spread between winners and losers, the success rate of incumbents, and whether candidates had opposition. In 98 percent of legislative races, the winner spent at least twice what the loser did, representing the greatest money gap in the Institute’s 20 years of national surveys.

The study highlights the critical need for reforming the system. Toward that end, the SC Progressive Network has assembled a bipartisan panel of lawmakers and good-government advocates to discuss legislative remedies at a public forum Feb. 6, 7-9pm at the USC School of Law, 1525 Senate St. in Columbia. The Money in SC Politics roundtable will be live streamed at the SC Progressive Network’s web site. A reception will follow the panel discussion.

“It’s our mission to educate South Carolina citizens, including politicians, about the lack of competition in our elections and how that fuels corruption,” said Kyle Criminger, co-chair of the SC Progressive Network’s research and policy institute.

John Crangle, the Network’s director of government relations, has been monitoring State House ethics for 30 years. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Crangle said. “I haven’t had representation in the Senate since last April because my senator was charged with embezzling campaign funds. If he’s found guilty, I’m going to have to pay both county and state taxes for a special election to replace him.”

Crangle’s senator, John Courson, is one of four legislators indicted on corruption charges who faced no major party competition in their last election. Sen. Mike Fanning has introduced a bill (S-533) to require politicians convicted of corruption to pay for the special election to replace them.

The political scandal prompted Attorney General Alan Wilson to recuse himself from the investigation. He has taken money from — and given money to — parties now accused of using campaign funds for personal gain. In 2014, Wilson raised over $800,000 in his race for re-election, exceeding legal limits. Wilson took the maximum contribution from SCANA, a corporation he now is being called on to investigate. His Democratic opponent that year raised only $19,000.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter will explain her bill (H-4498) to allow candidates for attorney general to get a grant to run for office if they refuse all private money, including their own. “Our top law enforcement officer shouldn’t take money from citizens and corporations that he or she may have to investigate,” she said.

Rep. Cobb-Hunter and Sen. Fanning will be joined on the panel by Rep. Gary Clary (R-Pickens), who has introduced a bill calling for an independent redistricting commission (H-4456) to promote competitive elections and reduce partisan gridlock. Sen. Bill Timmons (R-Greenville) will discuss legislation requiring candidates to release their tax returns (S-765), and a bill to increase funding for the state Ethics Commission.

Lynn Teague, with the League of Women Voters – SC, will also be on the panel. “We need to look at the common threads in our ethics problems, our need for redistricting, and utility reform,” she said, “because they are all rooted in common causes.”

Bobby Donaldson: “The legacy of Modjeska Simkins is not dead”

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In 1938, just days before her 39th birthday, Modjeska Simkins drew up plans for her own funeral. “For reasons known only to myself,” she wrote directives for a simple ceremony to be carried out “in the event of my demise.” It included a list of hymns and readings, and a note to the mortician to refuse floral arrangements.

We can only guess what prompted her to write the document, which USC history professor Dr. Bobby Donaldson shared at this year’s Modjeska party, an annual birthday celebration the SC Progressive Network holds at her Columbia home. He said it appears nobody ever read it, perhaps because it was buried in the piles of books and papers that filled her home.

This much is clear: there was much ado and flowers aplenty when Modjeska died in 1992. And for good reason.

Dr. Bobby Donaldson speaks from the back porch of the Modjeska Simkins House.

“Fortunately for us,” Donaldson said, “Modjeska did not die in 1938. If she had, we would not have a SC NAACP, established in 1939. If she had died, we would not have had an extraordinary letter written in 1944 to the governor, Olin D. Johnston, demanding he debate the merits of white supremacy. If she had died in 1938, we would not have the Modjeska in 1946 who helps organize one of the most extraordinary youth gatherings in the history of this country.”

He ticked off a list of things that would not exist were not for Modjeska, including the Harbison Training Institute that taught progressive activists in the late 1940s (with a curriculum mirroring that of the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights) and the 1951 Briggs v Elliott case, a critical component of what would become Brown v Board in 1954.

Donaldson ended with a call to action. “The legacy of Ms. Simkins is not dead,” he said. “And if we ever needed a Modjeska Simkins movement inspired by her legacy, you look around this world; we need it now.”

As part of the Network’s commitment to educating and mobilizing that movement, we are preparing to reprint Network Communications Director Becci Robbins’ booklet Modjeska Monteith Simkins: A South Carolina Revolutionary. It will include a new section with historical details discovered since the original printing.

The booklet, published in 2014 through a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission, has been circulated widely in the Midlands and at no cost to readers. We’d like to keep the booklet free. You can help make that possible.

To date, we have received a generous donation from Historic Columbia and a number of individual supporters, raising $1,700 of the $3,900 we need.

Please help us reach our goal by donating at our secure site or by calling our office at 803-808-3384.

To view more photos from this year’s party, see our album.

Listen to Modjeska Simkins School graduate Vikki Perry in this clip.

Revolutionaries to gather at intersection of art and activism

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Dream dangerously and party like a revolutionary during two days of art, culture, education, entertainment, and activism at the 2nd Subversive Art Festival Extravaganza (SAFE 2.0) on Nov. 3 and 4 in Columbia.

New Legacy Project, the youth coordinating body of SC Progressive Network, invites the public to join them for a weekend of education, arts, and culture that is intended to entertain, engage, and empower.

“SAFE 2.0 is a space to challenge the limits of what is presented as the only ‘workable’ systems of organizing our society,” said Daniel Deweese, New Legacy Project co-founder and SAFE organizer.

Festivities will kick off on Friday, Nov. 3, with a Find the Power Rally from 6pm to 8:30pm at the SC State House. The rally will begin with a guided tour of the grounds with recent graduates of the Modjeska Simkins School giving a people’s history of the monuments. It will close with a discussion on ways to build power to create positive change for the future of South Carolina. All are welcome to this free event.

On Saturday beginning at 5pm, join artists and activists for an art and culture festival at Tapp’s Art Center, 1644 Main St. There will be live music, spoken word performances, comedy, visual art, education, camaraderie, and more! Tickets for SAFE 2.0 are $7.

Connor Brunson performs at last year’s SAFE festival.

Art changes people, and people change the world. There is a long tradition of art meeting activism to create social and political change – even in South Carolina. With the recent emboldening of racist, bigoted, nationalistic, and misogynistic sentiment, it is increasingly important to present a united front against oppressive systems that silence and subjugate marginalized communities, especially when these systems are working for a miniscule percentage of Americans. Art and activism will always intersect in a way that educates and empowers people to effect change. The aim of SAFE 2.0 is to do just that.

The New Legacy Project values the collective wisdom and discipline of the progressive organizers who came before us working for radical, structural change. Our main objective is mentorship, education, and organizing young leaders who will continue building our inter-generational, multi-racial, multi-issue statewide popular movement for racial, economic and social justice and equality. To learn more about New Legacy Project and upcoming events, please see their Facebook page.

Network solidifies plans, hones strategy at fall retreat

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Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter spent the weekend at our retreat, leading group discussions and spearheading the formation of a development committee.

•  •  •

The SC Progressive Network‘s annual fall retreat last weekend at beautiful Santee State Park was one of the best meetings we’ve had. Since our founding in 1996, we have been steadily building a movement for social justice, holding true to the “revolution of values” that Dr. King called for. Over the past two decades (and the years of grass roots organizing at GROW that preceded the Network) we have built and maintained a solid framework for the coalition. Now we’re putting muscle on it.

Our analysis, strategy and tactics are holding under fire and proving themselves sound. We are developing public policy, crafting and passing legislation, and winning targeted races. Our success is due to perseverance, principled work, and trust built over time. The retreat was a chance for us to take stock of where we are and to map a path forward, with immediate and longer-term plans.

One of our primary goals now is to educate allies to the reality that we cannot fix the systemic problems that plague us with the tools that created them. We have to build our base of power outside the existing structures. Our strategy recognizes that to make and sustain real change, we must remain disciplined and think long term. We have an unprecedented opportunity to take advantage of the crises ravaging the two-party system and the corruption crippling the state’s political elite.

The Network’s core programs – our Democracy project and Racial Justice project – have gained traction in recent months. Each has created toolkits with data that can be customized with local information to organize across South Carolina. The toolkits are in the process of being updated to reflect the latest work that has been done and refined at the retreat. When they are posted, we will send out links.

Finally, we want to congratulate and welcome aboard the four candidates elected to the executive committee: Sarah Keeling, Carole Singletary, Katie Shulz, and Shannon Herin. Nice to have more womenfolk at the helm. We also want to thank everyone who worked to make the retreat such a success, including Reps. Gilda Cobb-Hunter and Wendy Brawley, our New Legacy Project volunteers, and everyone else who made time to join us. It was a great weekend.

We will post a more detailed retreat summary soon with action items and ways for you to get involved, wherever you are in the state and whatever issue you want to take on.

See more retreat photos in our PHOTO ALBUM.

Building The Wall; it’s more than a play

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Brett Bursey
Executive Director, SC Progressive Network

When the LA Times ran its review of Building the Wall last March, the headline said the play “imagines the unimaginable.” That was then.

When the Network was invited to a preview performance of the play at Trustus Theatre in April, I remember the conversations speculating as to whether Donald Trump would still be president in October, and whether the wall would still be an issue.

Six months later, Trump is still president and, as of Aug. 31, the Department of Homeland Security has awarded contracts to four companies to build prototypes of the wall. The winner of the contest will get a slice of the $1.8 billion in the president’s 2018 budget to begin building it. The budget also includes funding for 10,000 new beds in private prisons to house those without the proper papers.

In South Carolina, four counties have signed 287g contracts with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with the chilling acronym of ICE. Law enforcement authorities in Charleston, Lexington, York and Horry counties have agreed to make deputies in their jails available for training by ICE, and have them carry out immigration enforcement duties, like checking the immigration status of everyone booked into their county jails. In addition, deputized officers have broad discretion in the decision to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) to initiate removal proceedings or negotiate a Voluntary Departure.

The counties then call ICE to come and get undocumented prisoners, who are then sent – often after just 48 hours, to a private prison in Lumpkin, Ga. The Stewart Detention Center is the largest of the more than 400 detention centers across the nation that get paid to house those suspected of being undocumented. Operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, the for profit prison averages $97,647 federal tax dollars a day at $60.50 a head. It’s the largest employer in in the county, accounting for half its annual budget. ICE’s detention budget was $1.7 billion last year.

North Charleston police have been reported profiling Hispanic-looking drivers, stopping them for failure to signal a turn, weaving or other pretexts. If the driver doesn’t have a driver’s license, it’s off to the county jail, followed by a call to ICE, and then on to Georgia. This is usually without the benefit of legal counsel, and often without notification to family members.

The chair of Charleston County Council, when asked about the county jail’s agreement with ICE, said that he thought it was mandatory to cooperate with ICE and didn’t know that the sheriff had signed a memorandum agreeing to take prisoners as well as a per-head payment for detaining them.

The sheriff of Lexington County recently told a local audience that he signed on to the ICE detention program for community safety. A local resident pointed out that it was a policy matter, and that county council uses his tax money to pay the jail’s upkeep and the salary of his officers.

The Network has partnered with the Grassroots Alliance for Immigrant Rights (GAIR) to provide support and services to the families being torn apart by this administration’s anti-immigrant policies, financed in part by our county taxes. The organizing training and policy education GAIR is doing to empower leadership from the impacted communities is important. Contact the SC Progressive Network for more information or find GAIR on Facebook.

We encourage progressive citizens to inform and challenge their county councils and sheriffs, where the ICE agreements are in effect or being considered, because the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign is unwarranted, cruel political posturing that is unworthy of a great nation.

Building the Wall opens with a prisoner in an orange jump suit being interviewed by a professor who asks if he is a racist. As the play unfolds, you realize that he was a regular guy, just doing a job in a private prison where ICE was sending more and more immigrants without papers. As we realize what the prisoner has done, we are confronted with the horror of how ordinary citizens become instruments of evil.

As Trump’s policies destroy real lives and dreams, the descent into the unimaginable becomes more than a play. These are your tax dollars at work; this is what your complicit silence builds.

•  •  •

The Network is sponsoring the run of Building the Wall at Trustus, with two benefit performances Oct. 5 and 7.

Oct. 5, 7:30pm – Premiere – Buy tickets HERE

SHOW CANCELLED Oct. 7, 2pm – Matinee

Light refreshments, open bar. The one-hour show will be followed by Q&A with GAIR Director Laura Cahue and members of the impacted community. Get an inside view of what’s happening on the ground in South Carolina. For more information or to RSVP by phone, call the Network’s office at 803-808-3384.

Proceeds to benefit the Grassroots Alliance for Immigrant Rights and the SC Progressive Network