Video
Grades
- 6
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Joseph McDomick, Jr., former Penn Center project supervisor for over thirty years, tells how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his inner circle worked at Penn to plan events like the March on Washington...
Penn Center
The Penn Center is located on St. Helena Island, one of the most beautiful and historically distinct of the South Carolina Sea Islands, and at the heart of Gullah culture.
Several generations of the St. Helena community attended the historic Penn School, established as one of the first schools for freed slaves. In the 1950s and 1960s, the site served as a safe retreat for those involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists used the quiet refuge to plan the March on Washington, an event that helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Penn Center now serves as a resource center for those studying and protecting Sea Island communities.
Video
Grades
- 3
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- 6
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- 8
Joseph McDomick, Jr., former Penn Center project supervisor for over thirty years, talks about Dr. King's many visits to Penn Center and how the visits had to be kept quiet because of the threats on...
Video
Grades
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
Joseph McDomick, Jr, civil rights activist and former Penn Center employee, talks about why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to visit the Penn Center on many occasions during the civil rights...
Video
Grades
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
Episode
9
Robert Middleton left St. Helena at age 18, returning 45 years later after serving in the army, studying at Howard University, and a career of social work in Washington, D.C. and on an Apache Indian...
Video
Grades
- 6
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- 8
- 9
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- 12
Episode
12
Several generations of the St. Helena community attended the historic Penn School, established as one of the first schools for freed slaves. In the 1950s and 1960s, the site served as a safe retreat...
Related Series
Penn Center
The Penn Center, formerly the Penn School, is an African American cultural and educational center in the Corners Community, on Saint Helena Island.
Penn Center: A Legacy of Change
This program tells the story of the Penn Center’s inception in 1862 as a school for freed slaves to its involvement in the Gullah community today. Today the center collects, documents, preserves, and disseminates...
