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.
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Reverend Sarah H. Smith (1884-1937) was a Baptist preacher who came to Columbia early in the 20th century from Savannah and organized Bethlehem Baptist Church in 1913 by going from house to house. By...
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A former slave who became a state legislator and U.S. Congressman, Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was born in Beaufort, and moved with his master to Charleston in 1851. During the Civil War, he was pressed...
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Modjeska Monteith Simkins (1899-1992) is one of the outstanding civil rights leaders in South Carolina. The oldest of eight children of a bricklayer, she sought education not only for herself, but for...
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Richard S. Roberts (1880-1936), a talented photographer, left an enduring film record of Columbia's African-American middle class community during the 1920s and 1930s. This self portrait was taken in...
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Alonzo J. Ransier (1834-1882), born a free African-American in Charleston, was one of two African-American men in South Carolina to achieve the position of lieutenant governor. He held this office...
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Matthew J. Perry (1924-2011 ), Jr., a native South Carolinian, became a noted civil rights attorney for the NAACP; his legal victory on behalf of Harvey Gantt's suit to be admitted to Clemson...
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Ethel Bolden discusses why her son, Charles, chooses to be an astronaut, even in light of the dangers involved with space-flight. After the interview, the video gives a brief history of NASA space...
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Ellen Murray (1834-1908), with two young women from the Penn School. In 1862, Ellen Murray and Laura Towne (1825-1901), members of the Port Royal Experiment, established the first school for African...
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The "Challenger" astronaut Ron McNair (1951-1986) and Governor Richard Riley during a joint session of the South Carolina legislature in the House Chambers on April 11, 1984. McNair, an Air Force...
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Benjamin E. Mays (1894-1984) was born in Greenwood County, the son of former slaves, and educated at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and the University of Chicago, where he received his M.A. and Ph...
