February 23, 2026 • 9 mins
In South Carolina, the first school for formerly enslaved people during the Civil War shifted to become a center for social activism during the Civil Rights movement, and stands today as a landmark of African American culture and history. Learn more about the Penn Center in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-civil-war/penn-center-strategic-secret-pivotal-to-civil-rights-movement.htm
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren
Vogelbaum here nestled off the beaten path in the heart
of the Gullageechee Sea Islands of South Carolina's Low Country
is an American landmark that many have never heard of.
Situated between rich salt marshes and the Atlantic Coast and
(00:24):
shaded by moss Leyden Live Oaks, The Penn Center, located
for over one hundred and fifty years on Saint Helena
Island in Beaufort County, is a historic site of African
American education, culture, social justice, and community development that continues
its work today. In eighteen sixty two, six months before
(00:46):
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and three years
before the Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished slavery, a group of
Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian missionaries and abolitionists founded the Pennsi
School on Saint Helena. This was part of what's called
the Port Royal Experiment. In South Carolina. Plantation owners had
(01:09):
built an economic empire on enslaved labor. It was the
first state to seed from the Union, as sparking the
Civil War and becoming an immediate target of Union forces.
In eighteen sixty one, the US Navy seized the Port
Royal Sound from Confederate troops. The following year, the plantation
owners fled the Sea islands, reluctantly, abandoning their prized crop
(01:33):
of world renowned cotton and liberating somewhere from ten thousand
to thirty two thousand enslaved people. Seeing a need and
an opportunity, the US opened the area to a number
of public and private programs aiming to figure out how
to reform a social and economic structure based on enslavement
(01:53):
into a free society. It was an early and less
restricted form of reconstruction. Northern abolitionists and humanitarians donated funds
to help freed people by former plantation land at reasonable
rates and establish farms, hospitals, and schools. The Penn School,
and named after Quaker activist William Penn, was the first
(02:16):
school founded in a Confederate state for the sole purpose
of educating freed people. It began in the living room
of the abandoned Oaks Plantation before the first schoolhouse was built,
and eventually grew to become a fifty acre campus, including
nineteen now historic buildings. The land was donated by a
freed entrepreneur by the name of Hasting Gant. The first
(02:39):
classes were taught by white abolitionists Laura Town and Ellen Murray,
and briefly by Charlotte Forton, who was the first African
American teacher at Penn. The earliest curriculum followed the New
England eurocentric model of socialized education that included reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history,
and music. Sixty seven, South Carolina had a majority of
(03:02):
black registered voters. Black candidates were winning elections, and the
Penn School received public funding, but the post war reconstruction
era in the state was rocky, and a decade later
Jim Crow laws had suffused the South. The school struggled
but stayed afloat thanks to private donations. In the early
(03:23):
nineteen hundreds, RASA. B. Cooley and Grace House, two other
northern white women, revised the curriculum to follow Booker T.
Washington's Hampton tuscg model of industrial education, including various trades
and agricultural sciences. They excised some classical studies like algebra
and Latin, and added courses such as masonry, carpentry, and
(03:45):
the domestic arts up to the end of World War II,
the state of South Carolina only required that education for
Black Americans go through the seventh grade level, but Penn
provided schooling through the twelfth grade of plus adult education
classes as well. However, by the late nineteen forties, the
population of Saint Helena had dwindled significantly. Many Islanders and
(04:07):
young people in particular, were leaving isolated Beeford County to
seek opportunities in larger cities. In response, the board of
trustees at Penn redefined the purpose of the school and
launched the Penn Community Service Center in nineteen forty eight,
including services like daycare, a hangout space for tines, and
health clinic. They also offered midwife training beyond that, Throughout
(04:32):
the nineteen fifties and sixties, Penn Center became a nexus
for civil rights activism and social justice, not just for
South Carolina but for the entire nation. Being isolated out
among the marshes, it was one of the few places
in the Jim Crow South where interracial groups of activists
could convene in integrated facilities, including overnight, without the threat
(04:53):
of legal consequences or outside violence. Penn Center hosted human
rights conference with groups including the NAACP, the World Peace Foundation,
the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, and the Peace Corps,
just to name a few. It was a place to
(05:14):
organize and strategize. A former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, in
his role as leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
introduced doctor Martin Luther King Junior to the serenity and
security of Penn Center. Between nineteen sixty four and nineteen
sixty seven, King visited Penn five times, along with other
(05:35):
luminaries of the civil rights movement and countless unnamed activists.
It became a sort of refuge for King outside of
the pressure of being a civil rights leader on the
national stage. King composed many of his speeches at Penn,
including his I Have a Dream speech, which he wrote
while staying in the Hasting Gant Cottage. He also spoke
(05:58):
there about his broader concerns outside of the civil rights movement,
which included capitalism and the economic and equality of these
some forty million Americans living in poverty, and his then
unpopular anti war stance regarding Vietnam. During a rare formal
speech at Penn he laid out a set of what
he called the inseparable triplets, three intrinsically connected evils in America, racism,
(06:24):
excessive materialism, and militarism. He urged his fellow leaders there
to consider and address all three in their attempts to
elicit change. The organizers who gathered at Penn Center didn't
always agree on the best courses of action, and although
it is remote, they still had to exercise caution to
(06:44):
keep each other safe, perhaps especially doctor King, who was
very much in the public eye and was assassinated in
April nineteen sixty eight in Memphis, Tennessee, just four months
after his last meeting at Penn Center, and the day
after he had told striking sanitation workers, We've got to
give ourselves to this struggle. Until the end. After the
(07:06):
Civil Rights era, the center continued its work, hosting retreats
for churches and other organizations, training peace corps agricultural workers,
promoting environmental sustainability, and serving as an educational site for
black history and culture. The Old School campus was added
to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy four.
(07:27):
The original trade class shop, built in nineteen twelve, was
rededicated in nineteen ninety nine to honor doctor York W. Bailey,
who attended the Penn School as a child in the
late eighteen hundreds, earned his medical degree from Howard University,
and returned home to become Saint Helena's first black physician. Today,
the shop houses a museum, the showcases and archive of
(07:48):
rare photographs of African Americans, as well as artifacts related
to Glagichi history and culture. In twenty sixteen, Penn's then
executive director, doctor Rodell Lawrence wrote for The Hill quote,
most Americans came from somewhere else to this continent, and
Penn Center provides us with a direct link to the
African origins of slaves that occupied America's southeastern seaboard. It
(08:12):
is a window to a place in which many African
Americans emerged from bondage and set out on a new
journey as free men and women. It is a place
and a time to celebrate. Penn Center vividly embodies the
American ideal of liberty and justice for all, and in
every sense is a true historic national monument. To that end,
(08:34):
President Barack Obama named a swath of Beaufort County, South Carolina,
including the Penn Center, a national historical monument to the
Reconstruction Era, a week before he left office in January
of twenty seventeen. It's now part of the Reconstruction Era
National Historic Park managed by the National Park Service. Today
(08:54):
you can visit the center to explore the museum and
take a tour. Penn hosts lots of local events too,
including the Heritage Days Festival in early November of every year,
celebrating the area's Gllageechee cultural legacy with an educational symposium,
a space for artists and authors, craft and genealogy workshops, music,
(09:14):
and a fish fry and oyster roast. Today's episode is
based on the article Pen Center, a little known haven
of the Civil Rights Movement on how stuffworks dot com,
written by Kerry Tatreu. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced
by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
(09:37):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren
Vogelbaum here nestled off the beaten path in the heart
of the Gullageechee Sea Islands of South Carolina's Low Country
is an American landmark that many have never heard of.
Situated between rich salt marshes and the Atlantic Coast and
(00:24):
shaded by moss Leyden Live Oaks, The Penn Center, located
for over one hundred and fifty years on Saint Helena
Island in Beaufort County, is a historic site of African
American education, culture, social justice, and community development that continues
its work today. In eighteen sixty two, six months before
(00:46):
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and three years
before the Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished slavery, a group of
Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian missionaries and abolitionists founded the Pennsi
School on Saint Helena. This was part of what's called
the Port Royal Experiment. In South Carolina. Plantation owners had
(01:09):
built an economic empire on enslaved labor. It was the
first state to seed from the Union, as sparking the
Civil War and becoming an immediate target of Union forces.
In eighteen sixty one, the US Navy seized the Port
Royal Sound from Confederate troops. The following year, the plantation
owners fled the Sea islands, reluctantly, abandoning their prized crop
(01:33):
of world renowned cotton and liberating somewhere from ten thousand
to thirty two thousand enslaved people. Seeing a need and
an opportunity, the US opened the area to a number
of public and private programs aiming to figure out how
to reform a social and economic structure based on enslavement
(01:53):
into a free society. It was an early and less
restricted form of reconstruction. Northern abolitionists and humanitarians donated funds
to help freed people by former plantation land at reasonable
rates and establish farms, hospitals, and schools. The Penn School,
and named after Quaker activist William Penn, was the first
(02:16):
school founded in a Confederate state for the sole purpose
of educating freed people. It began in the living room
of the abandoned Oaks Plantation before the first schoolhouse was built,
and eventually grew to become a fifty acre campus, including
nineteen now historic buildings. The land was donated by a
freed entrepreneur by the name of Hasting Gant. The first
(02:39):
classes were taught by white abolitionists Laura Town and Ellen Murray,
and briefly by Charlotte Forton, who was the first African
American teacher at Penn. The earliest curriculum followed the New
England eurocentric model of socialized education that included reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history,
and music. Sixty seven, South Carolina had a majority of
(03:02):
black registered voters. Black candidates were winning elections, and the
Penn School received public funding, but the post war reconstruction
era in the state was rocky, and a decade later
Jim Crow laws had suffused the South. The school struggled
but stayed afloat thanks to private donations. In the early
(03:23):
nineteen hundreds, RASA. B. Cooley and Grace House, two other
northern white women, revised the curriculum to follow Booker T.
Washington's Hampton tuscg model of industrial education, including various trades
and agricultural sciences. They excised some classical studies like algebra
and Latin, and added courses such as masonry, carpentry, and
(03:45):
the domestic arts up to the end of World War II,
the state of South Carolina only required that education for
Black Americans go through the seventh grade level, but Penn
provided schooling through the twelfth grade of plus adult education
classes as well. However, by the late nineteen forties, the
population of Saint Helena had dwindled significantly. Many Islanders and
(04:07):
young people in particular, were leaving isolated Beeford County to
seek opportunities in larger cities. In response, the board of
trustees at Penn redefined the purpose of the school and
launched the Penn Community Service Center in nineteen forty eight,
including services like daycare, a hangout space for tines, and
health clinic. They also offered midwife training beyond that, Throughout
(04:32):
the nineteen fifties and sixties, Penn Center became a nexus
for civil rights activism and social justice, not just for
South Carolina but for the entire nation. Being isolated out
among the marshes, it was one of the few places
in the Jim Crow South where interracial groups of activists
could convene in integrated facilities, including overnight, without the threat
(04:53):
of legal consequences or outside violence. Penn Center hosted human
rights conference with groups including the NAACP, the World Peace Foundation,
the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, and the Peace Corps,
just to name a few. It was a place to
(05:14):
organize and strategize. A former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, in
his role as leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
introduced doctor Martin Luther King Junior to the serenity and
security of Penn Center. Between nineteen sixty four and nineteen
sixty seven, King visited Penn five times, along with other
(05:35):
luminaries of the civil rights movement and countless unnamed activists.
It became a sort of refuge for King outside of
the pressure of being a civil rights leader on the
national stage. King composed many of his speeches at Penn,
including his I Have a Dream speech, which he wrote
while staying in the Hasting Gant Cottage. He also spoke
(05:58):
there about his broader concerns outside of the civil rights movement,
which included capitalism and the economic and equality of these
some forty million Americans living in poverty, and his then
unpopular anti war stance regarding Vietnam. During a rare formal
speech at Penn he laid out a set of what
he called the inseparable triplets, three intrinsically connected evils in America, racism,
(06:24):
excessive materialism, and militarism. He urged his fellow leaders there
to consider and address all three in their attempts to
elicit change. The organizers who gathered at Penn Center didn't
always agree on the best courses of action, and although
it is remote, they still had to exercise caution to
(06:44):
keep each other safe, perhaps especially doctor King, who was
very much in the public eye and was assassinated in
April nineteen sixty eight in Memphis, Tennessee, just four months
after his last meeting at Penn Center, and the day
after he had told striking sanitation workers, We've got to
give ourselves to this struggle. Until the end. After the
(07:06):
Civil Rights era, the center continued its work, hosting retreats
for churches and other organizations, training peace corps agricultural workers,
promoting environmental sustainability, and serving as an educational site for
black history and culture. The Old School campus was added
to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy four.
(07:27):
The original trade class shop, built in nineteen twelve, was
rededicated in nineteen ninety nine to honor doctor York W. Bailey,
who attended the Penn School as a child in the
late eighteen hundreds, earned his medical degree from Howard University,
and returned home to become Saint Helena's first black physician. Today,
the shop houses a museum, the showcases and archive of
(07:48):
rare photographs of African Americans, as well as artifacts related
to Glagichi history and culture. In twenty sixteen, Penn's then
executive director, doctor Rodell Lawrence wrote for The Hill quote,
most Americans came from somewhere else to this continent, and
Penn Center provides us with a direct link to the
African origins of slaves that occupied America's southeastern seaboard. It
(08:12):
is a window to a place in which many African
Americans emerged from bondage and set out on a new
journey as free men and women. It is a place
and a time to celebrate. Penn Center vividly embodies the
American ideal of liberty and justice for all, and in
every sense is a true historic national monument. To that end,
(08:34):
President Barack Obama named a swath of Beaufort County, South Carolina,
including the Penn Center, a national historical monument to the
Reconstruction Era, a week before he left office in January
of twenty seventeen. It's now part of the Reconstruction Era
National Historic Park managed by the National Park Service. Today
(08:54):
you can visit the center to explore the museum and
take a tour. Penn hosts lots of local events too,
including the Heritage Days Festival in early November of every year,
celebrating the area's Gllageechee cultural legacy with an educational symposium,
a space for artists and authors, craft and genealogy workshops, music,
(09:14):
and a fish fry and oyster roast. Today's episode is
based on the article Pen Center, a little known haven
of the Civil Rights Movement on how stuffworks dot com,
written by Kerry Tatreu. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced
by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
(09:37):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
BrainStuff News
Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
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