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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Waymon Stover talks about his experience marching in Orangeburg in 1963 to desegregate lunch counters and being arrested.
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University of South Carolina student, Tom Benning, gives a brief history of the life of John H. McCray. McCray was a pivotal figure in the Waverly Community, Columbia and in the surrounding areas.
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Ida McCain's husband was Sumter educator James T. McCain. In 1921, sixteen year old McCain began his involvement in civil rights by registering voters in Sumter county. He was the founding president...
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Henry J. Clark attended the Pineview Indian School in the late 1930s and the Varner Indian School in the early 1940s.
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Joseph McDomick, Jr., civil rights activist in Beaufort county, relates one experience when he tried to get service at a segregated white restaurant.
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Listen to both black and white students as they talk in a round table discussion about desegregation. Each talks about how the transition has affected them and their classes.
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Lee Allyson Gailliard discusses the significance of the youth involvement in the NACCP. She elaborates on the remarkable advantage of participating in The Civil Rights Tour at The University of South...
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Atlantic Beach, nicknamed "The Black Pearl," was established about 1934 as an oceanfront community for blacks denied access by other area beaches by segregation. Many became year-round residents, but...
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Joseph McDomick, Jr., civil rights activist in Beaufort county, talks about picketing department stores like Edwards, Roses and Piggly Wiggly to protest the stores' refusal to hire black clerks.
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Beginning in the 1950s, Judge Matthew Perry, Jr became the leading civil rights lawyer in South Carolina. Judge Perry was the first African American federal judge in South Carolina. The Matthew J...
