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Lamar High School in Darlington County, South Carolina, was the site of an attack on school buses carrying African American students to the campus on March 3, 1970. In January 1970, the 4th Circuit...
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.
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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...
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Penn Center is one of the most significant African American historical and cultural institutions in existence today. The historic campus is located on St. Helena Island, one of the most beautiful and...
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The Penn Center, founded officially as the Penn School in 1865, is a campus of buildings dedicated to African American education in St. Helena Island, South Carolina. The original school grew out of...
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Penn Center is one of the most significant African American historical and cultural institutions in existence today. The historic campus is located on St. Helena Island, one of the most beautiful and...
Interactive
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After becoming Penn Community Center in 1953, the institution began to focus on social issues affecting the well-being of the native islanders. This expanded to African Americans as a whole in the...
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Emory Campbell is a community leader on Saint Helena's Island, SC. This is his full interview from the SCETV documentary "Sea Change." Questions addressed in this video include: What would the effect...
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An important event at the Penn School was the annual Baby Fair, sponsored by the school as a way to encourage good nutrition and other health practices for children of St. Helena's Island. This...
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The children from Pollawana Island in this 1910 photograph came to the Penn School by boat. From the Penn School Collection. Permission granted by Penn Center, Inc., St. Helena Island, SC.
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This one-room school on Coosaw Island was taught by a Penn School graduate in the 1920s. A Penn School faculty member wrote a note on the back of the photograph, "It is to such conditions that our...
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The original building of the Penn School photographed around 1890. The Penn School, located on St. Helena's Island, was the first school for freed African-Americans opened by northerners in the South...
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African herbal medicine traditions remained an important part of health care practices in the slave communities. Even after the war, when the Freedman's Bureau and northern educators tried to teach...
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The crafts that Africans brought with them in their heads and hands to the new world were crafts that were important to carrying out everyday life--whether it be making baskets and pots, or keeping...
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A group of Penn School baskets, illustrating their many forms, as well as the beauty that made them an important craft that Sea Island residents could sell as the tourist industry began to expand in...
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The first basket teacher at the Penn School worked to revive and perpetuate the African basket making skills among the children of the Sea Islands. The baskets made had a wide range of utilitarian...
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Winnowing rice with a fanner basket near Beaufort, in 1907. The sweet grass baskets now sold as decorative items in Charleston area open air markets were originally essential pieces of home and field...
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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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Penn School closed its doors in the late 1940s and redirected its efforts to address social injustice. 1964 was the height of the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. and his group were...
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Another way that Penn helps to remember the culture is through the Heritage Days Celebration. The event was rekindled in 1981 but has its roots in the old harvest day celebration. Heritage Days are...
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Located on St. Helena Island, some may remember it as Penn School, while others know it as Penn Center. St. Helena is one of the few places where you will see a living Gullah community. The history...
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Researcher Dale Rosengarten reads a passage from a Penn School program dating the first year that basketmaking was taught at the school.
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Resident of St. Helena Island, SC (Beaufort County). His father, George Brown, taught basketmaking at the Penn School on St. Helena Island in the early 20th Century. The school was founded in the...
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Joseph McDomick, Jr., former Penn Center project supervisor for over thirty years, talks about the history of the Penn Center. A history that began with the Port Royal Experiment in 1862 and the...
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Mary Long talks about how far the Penn Center has come in establishing freedom for African Americans. It was at the Penn Center where many African Americans were given a chance to learn. CREDIT: Mary...
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...
