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In this photograph, Ellen Iredell Butler (1905-) is opening her invitation to the 1961 presidential inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A lifelong Democrat and the first woman to hold political...
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Born in Blackville, in Barnwell County, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Solomon Blatt (1895-1986) rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in South Carolina. Educated at the...
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On January 27, 1988, Jean Toal was chosen as the first woman to sit on the South Carolina State Supreme Court. Here, her family looks on as the vote confirming her election is announced in the Senate...
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The congressional redistricting in 1981 led to the election of I. DeQuincey Newman as the first African-American South Carolina senator since the end of Reconstruction. Here, he greets some of his new...
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Marion Gressett (1902-1984, see Marion Gressett And Hyman Rubin) was first elected to the South Carolina state Senate from Calhoun County in 1937. A powerful political figure during the 1950s and...
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South Carolina native Jesse Jackson, born in Greenville in poverty, became an important national African-American leader because of his charismatic personality and his organization of African-American...
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In 1979, Nancy Stevenson became the first woman elected to the office of lieutenant governor. One of the roles of lieutenant governor is to preside over the Senate. Photo by Vic Tutte, March 1979...
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James B. Edwards descends the steps of the State House with previous Governor John C. West at his January 15, 1975, inauguration as the first Republican governor of South Carolina since Reconstruction...
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Since the end of Reconstruction, South Carolina had been regarded as the heart of the "Solid South," where only the Democratic Party elected officeholders on either the state or national level. The...
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In 1960, Richard M. Nixon attempted to appeal to South Carolina Democrats who were unhappy with their national party's choice for president, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. In a cartoon...