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 classes for formerly enslaved African Americans held at Brick Baptist Church in 1862. One of the school’s founders, Laura Towne bought land from Hastings Gantt, a freedman, in 1864, and opened Penn School in 1865, becoming one of the first schools in the South for formerly enslaved individuals. Through the Reconstruction period of South Carolina, the Penn School was financially supported through private donations and public tax support as African Americans won election to the South Carolina legislature in 1867.
Included in this photo gallery are the following:
- Exterior looks at the Penn Center campus
- Frissel Hall
- Brick Baptist Church
- Gant Cottage
- Penn Center Historical Marker
Standards
- 4.5.CC Identify and evaluate the impact of economic, political, and social events on the African American experience throughout Reconstruction.
- 4.5.E Analyze multiple perspectives of the economic, political, and social effects of Reconstruction on different populations in the South and in other regions of the U.S.
- 5.4.CC Analyze the continuities and changes of race relations in the United States and South Carolina following the Supreme Court decisions of Briggs v. Elliott and Brown v. Board of Education.
- 5.4.E Analyze multiple perspectives on the economic, political, and social effects of the Cold War, Space Race, and Civil Rights Movement using primary and secondary sources.
- 8.4.CX Evaluate South Carolinians’ struggle to create an understanding of their post-Civil War position within the state, the country, and the world.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into how the former planter class, African Americans, women, and others adjusted to, gained, lost, and/or regained position and status during Reconstruction. This indicator was also written to foster inquiry into how South Carolina worked with a stronger federal government and expanding international markets.
- 8.4.CC Analyze continuities and change in the African American experience in the period of Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras within South Carolina.
- This indicator was developed to encourage inquiry into the successes and failures of Reconstruction, beginning with the Port Royal Experiment, in South Carolina. This indicator was written to explore development of the Constitutions of 1868 and 1895 and to analyze the evolution of restrictions for African Americans from the Black Codes in 1866 through the Plessy decision in 1898.
- 8.5.CX Analyze the correlation between the Modern Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina and the U.S.
- This indicator was designed to foster inquiry into the role of South Carolina in the Modern Civil Rights Movement, to include the influence of court cases such as Briggs v. Elliot and Flemming v. South Carolina Electric and Gas. This indicator was also developed to promote inquiry into the relationship between national leadership, protests, and events and South Carolina leadership, protests and events, such as the Friendship Nine and the Orangeburg Massacre.
- 8.5.E Utilize a variety of primary and secondary sources to analyze multiple perspectives on the cultural changes in South Carolina and the U.S.
- USHC.5.CC Evaluate continuities and changes during the Civil Rights Movement and other subsequent movements for equal rights.
- This indicator was developed to promote inquiry into thematic continuities and changes into how marginalized groups sought and won legal rights. Inquiry into the leadership, methods, and outcomes of modern equal rights movements are supported by this indicator.
Resources
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