Learn about the movers and shakers of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina and nationally in the United States.
Biographies are provided with permission from the exhibit "A More Convenient Season: Civil Rights in South Carolina, 1948-1968." Installed 2005 at the South Carolina State Museum, courtesy of Cecil Williams and the I.P. Stanback Museum.
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Rosa Parks is credited as the mother of the civil rights movement. On December 1, 1955, the tired seamstress refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. She was...
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A Charleston arts patron and gifted vocalist, Ruby Pendergrass Cornwell used her voice to make a difference in Charleston's cultural arts society. She was known as an inspiring teacher in civil rights...
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Samuel Hammond, Jr., a victim of Orangeburg Massacre was a 20 year old student attending South Carolina State College. Photo courtesy of Cecil Williams.
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In June 1954 Sarah Mae Fleming, a 20-year-old African-American boarded a local bus, owned and operated by South Carolina Electric and Gas Company. According to Fleming the bus driver told her to move...
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Septima Poinsette Clark is considered to be one of the mothers of the civil rights movement. As an active member of the NAACP, she helped the organization fight to obtain equal pay for Black teachers...
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Thurgood Marshall's entire legal career was devoted to pursuing equal justice for all. He argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court and won 29 of those cases, including his most significant, Brown v...
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Victoria Way DeLee, Courtesy of Modern Political Collection, USC Considered a grass roots activist, Victoria Way DeLee's fervent faith in God and her early childhood experiences fueled her involvement...
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Born in Sumter, and reared in Columbia, the Honorable Willie T. Smith was at the forefront of the civil rights movement in South Carolina. He served on the NAACP legal team that included Harvey Gantt...