African American History

Learn about the achievements of African Americans who have shaped South Carolina and American history.

Black History Month is celebrated every February to honor the achievements of African Americans who have shaped American history. Historian Carter G. Woodson hoped to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization by establishing Negro History Week. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that included both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass' birthdays. The week was later expanded to a month in 1976 during the United States bicentennial.

PHOTO: On March 20, 1969, Black hospital workers at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston went on strike to protest the firing of twelve employees and to call for higher wages and union recognition.

Within this Collection

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Middle Passage | Gullah Music

Episode 2

European slave traders brought Africans to the New World on ships as early as the 1400s. These voyages across the Atlantic Ocean are called the Middle Passage. It was a terrible experience for the...

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Spirituals | Gullah Music

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Spirituals developed at the same time as work songs on the plantations. Although they were religious songs with a Christian message, spirituals were also heartfelt expressions of the slave experience...

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Higher Education

Old Man River | Digital Traditions

Smith singing at the 1988 Harborwalk Festival in Georgetown, SC. Aired on "Midday 5" program with WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina

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Reconciliation | ETV Shorts

Two men, Larry Doby and Bernard Baruch, are honored together in the form of bronze sculptures in downtown Camden, South Carolina. Both were Camden natives who went on to leave an indelible mark on the...

Cordial Churchman Bowtie Company | ETV Shorts South Carolina Jazz Festival | ETV Shorts

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South Carolina Jazz Festival | ETV Shorts

Jazz king John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was born in Cheraw in 1917. Dizzy was a founder of modern jazz, an innovative trumpeter known for his bent horn and bulging cheeks. The South Carolina Jazz...

Andrew Young on the Death of MLK, Jr. | ETV Shorts

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Andrew Young on the Death of MLK, Jr. | ETV Shorts

Andrew Young, politician, diplomat, activist, and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., talks about the death of the American icon.

Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 4: Conclusion 4

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Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 4: Conclusion

Episode 4

The conclusion to the program. Dean Livingston, the former editor of the Orangeburg Times & Democrat, discusses the difficulty that he and Kent Krell of the Associated Press had in putting the story...

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Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 3: Wednesday Feb. 7 & Thursday, Feb. 8, 1968

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A look at the events of Wednesday Feb. 7 and Thursday, Feb. 8, 1968 during the Tragedy at Orangeburg. On Wednesday morning, students sought to obtain a permit to march in protest. The City...

Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 4: Conclusion
- Episode 4 Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 2: Monday Feb. 5, 1968 2

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Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 2: Monday Feb. 5, 1968

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A look at the timeline of the Orangeburg Massacre: Monday, February 5, 1968. Following a wave of campus protests over signs of racial inequity, students, frustrated by months of ineffective...

Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 4: Conclusion
- Episode 4 Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 1: Intro 1

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Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, Part 1: Intro

Episode 1

Part 1 of Tragedy at Orangeburg: 25 Years Later, an introduction to the events in Orangeburg in 1968. (Documentary produced in 1993 by Beryl Dakers of South Carolina ETV.) Two reporters, Jack Bass and...

Family Across the Sea, Part 4 | SCETV Specials (1990) 4

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Family Across the Sea, Part 4 | SCETV Specials (1990)

Episode 4

Family Across the Sea, Part 4 Like the Black Seminoles who fled white civilization, blacks began to return to Africa in the 19th century. Historian Alpha Bah has studied the return of blacks to Sierra...

Family Across the Sea, Part 3 | SCETV Specials (1990) 3

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Family Across the Sea, Part 3 | SCETV Specials (1990)

Episode 3

Family Across the Sea, Part 3 Anthropologist Joe Opala has studied the history of slavery from the African side of the ocean. He has tracked a remarkable series of connections that end in Charleston...

Orangeburg Massacre, Part 4 | Project Discovery 4

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Orangeburg Massacre, Part 4 | Project Discovery

Episode 4

Part 4 of Project Discovery's look at the Orangeburg Massacre on its 40th anniversary.

Family Across the Sea, Part 2 | SCETV Specials (1990) 2

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Family Across the Sea, Part 2 | SCETV Specials (1990)

Episode 2

Family Across the Sea, Part 2 A young black scholar named Lorenzo Turner began to research Gullah culture and language. Folklorists and historians who had studied this culture before Turner and...

Family Across the Sea, Part 1 | SCETV Specials (1990) 1

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Family Across the Sea, Part 1 | SCETV Specials (1990)

Episode 1

Family Across the Sea, Part 1 This award-winning program explores the remarkable connections between the Gullah of the South Carolina/Georgia Sea Islands and the people of West Africa, particularly...

Orangeburg Massacre, Part 2 | Project Discovery 2

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Orangeburg Massacre, Part 2 | Project Discovery

Episode 2

Part 2 of Project Discovery's look at the Orangeburg Massacre on its 40th anniversary.

Orangeburg Massacre, Part 3 | Project Discovery 3

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Orangeburg Massacre, Part 3 | Project Discovery

Episode 3

Part 3 of Project Discovery's look at the Orangeburg Massacre on its 40th anniversary.

Orangeburg Massacre, Part 1 | Project Discovery 1

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Orangeburg Massacre, Part 1 | Project Discovery

Episode 1

Part 1 of Project Discovery's look at the Orangeburg Massacre on its 40th anniversary. In 1968, civil rights demonstrations, to desegregate a bowling alley near S.C. State University, resulted in the...

Orangeburg Massacre, Part 6 | The Big Picture
- Episode 6 Orangeburg Massacre, Part 4 | The Big Picture 4

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Orangeburg Massacre, Part 4 | The Big Picture

Episode 4

Part 4 of the Commemoration of the Orangeburg Massacre on its 40th anniversary: An interview with Martin Luther King, III, who was asked what his father would think about the events that occurred 40...

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Road Trip Coastal, Stop 3

The Road Trip Coastal team learns about the historical significance of Atlantic Beach.

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Road Trip Coastal, Stop 1: Robert Ford

The Road Trip Coastal team speak to Senator Robert Ford about his experiences in the civil rights movement in South Carolina and calls for young people to continue to take action.