The front porches of Augusta, Georgia shaped Dr. Bobby Donaldson long before formal education ever could. Through his grandmother's stories, the seeds of historical inquiry were planted, setting him on a path to become one of the nation's foremost chroniclers of South Carolina's civil rights movement.
When Dr. Donaldson arrived at the University of South Carolina 25 years ago, established scholars confidently told him "there wasn't much of a civil rights movement in South Carolina." This assertion – which he immediately recognized as false – exemplifies the historical erasure he's spent his career fighting. Drawing inspiration from pioneers like Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who created Negro History Week (now Black History Month) while facing similar institutional barriers in the 1930s, Donaldson has methodically constructed an irrefutable record of Black resistance and activism throughout South Carolina's history.
Through the Center for Civil Rights History and Research, Donaldson has democratized historical knowledge beyond academic circles. His team digitizes forgotten photographs, develops curriculum for teachers, creates walking tours, and records oral histories – all while training the next generation of historians. The work reveals extraordinary stories: Joseph Rainey, the first Black representative in the South Carolina legislature who helped create a constitution mandating integrated education; the brief period when USC had a majority-Black student body in the 1870s; and the ordinary families from Summerton whose petition for better schools became the cornerstone of Brown v. Board of Education.
Guided by civil rights activist Donella Brown Wilson's principle that "history has no purpose unless you use it," Donaldson's work transcends mere documentation. In our current moment, when battles over curricula and historical interpretation rage across the country, his meticulous research provides both inspiration and armor for those fighting to preserve accurate historical narratives. Listen as he shares how these recovered stories illuminate not just where we've been, but where we might go next.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening and welcome to Native Drums.
Our guest on this podcast todayis Dr Bobby J Donaldson Jr,
Associate Professor of Historyand the Director of the Center
for Civil Rights, History andResearch at the University of
South Carolina, Columbia.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Greetings.
I'm Dr Bobby Donaldson.
I'm a professor of history atthe University of South Carolina
, where I serve as the executivedirector of the Center for
Civil Rights History andResearch, and I'm also the James
and Emily Clyburn EndowedProfessor at the University of
South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Can you describe your educational background and how
it prepared you for your career?
Can you?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
describe your educational background and how
it prepared you for your career.
So I'm a native of Augusta,georgia, and it was in Augusta
where I had my first training asa historian.
Before ever going to formalschool, I was trained by my
grandmother and my greatgrandparents on the front porch
and living rooms, listening tostories, and so the seed for
history and the seed forrecovering and documenting the
(01:06):
past were planted well before Iwent to kindergarten.
I went to elementary school ata place called WS Harnsby
Elementary, which was in an areaof Augusta called the Bottoms.
It was the lowest part of ourcity in terms of geography and
some thought the lowest part interms of class and socioeconomic
conditions.
However, I grew up in a veryrich home with supportive
(01:30):
grandparents and parents and acommunity.
At the school I attended, wsHornsby School, I was taught and
trained, more or less baptizedin black history.
The person who had the greatestinfluence on me was a woman
named Mrs CW Eason.
She was a school librarian andshe turned our school library
(01:51):
club into a black history month,or black history training
ground.
From there I became part of anexperiment in Augusta, where I
helped to.
I became part of the earlygroup of students who were part
of a performing arts magnetschool, and this pulled students
from across the city of Augustainto this performing arts
magnet school.
My art was theater and so Iperformed on the stage and still
(02:15):
am.
I graduated from that school andI went from sixth grade to 12th
grade, and that one schoolfinished there with every
intention of going off tocollege to become a lawyer.
And so I went to WesleyanUniversity in Middletown,
connecticut, where initially Imajored in political science
with every intention of becominga lawyer.
But while at Wesleyan I met anAfrican-American professor who
(02:39):
told me about an initiativecalled the Mellon Foundation.
And the Mellon Foundation wasan initiative that sought out
students of color to pursuecareers in the academy, and
first I had to understand whatthe academy was.
But through Dr Harris I gotthis fellowship to the Mellon
Foundation and I served as aMellon fellow as an
(03:00):
undergraduate.
I then left Wesleyan and wentto Emory University in Atlanta,
georgia, where I got my PhD inhistory.
Following my PhD work, I didtraining at Dartmouth College
and Harvard University and havebeen on the faculty of the
University of South Carolina nowfor 25 years.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
How has your education influenced your
approach to historical research?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How has your education influenced your
approach to historical research.
So I think I have training intwo levels.
I have formal training.
I've been trained in archivalresearch, in academic writing,
in scholarship, and that hasbeen quite beneficial to my
career.
But I've also been trained inwhat I call old school, the
informal training which Iincorporate every day.
(03:50):
One story I tell often thatshows the impact of teachers in
those early careers is when Iwas in middle school I was part
of a group called the NationalHistory Day, and this is an
ongoing program and the NationalHistory Day attempts to well
exposes young men and women tohistorical research.
(04:13):
And you can do an essay, youcan do a display board or you
can do a performance, and so Idecided to do a performance on
my great-grandfather, whose namewas Smart Williams.
That was his given name and Iknew him.
(04:33):
I took notes as I was livingand working with him, but when
he died it was right as thisproduction was taking place.
And so my teacher said you needto have additional research to
supplement what you'representing on stage, and so I
(04:53):
had to go and find primarysource material and secondary
source material aboutAfrican-American life in South
Carolina at the turn of the 20thcentury life in South Carolina
at the turn of the 20th century,and one of the documents that I
found, or one of the sources,was this book called Born to
(05:15):
Rebel, and at the time I did notknow who the author was.
The author was Dr BenjaminElijah Mays, one of the most
influential scholars, activists,theologians of the 20th century
, and Dr Mays wrote this bookBorn to Rebel to explain his
journey from rural SouthCarolina to becoming the mentor
of Martha Keene Jr, to becomingthe president of Morehouse
(05:39):
College.
And in this book it talks abouta young black boy from the
South who gets a PhD, whopursues a career in the academy,
and as I'm reading it I'm likethat sounds like an aspiration.
So I checked this book out ofthe Augusta Public Library over
40 years ago and this is thebook it is the same book that
(06:02):
I've not returned since thattime, in part because that book
and Dr Mays' example transformedhow I thought about the world,
how I thought about my ownfuture.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So how do you handle working with colleagues who have
different viewpoints orinterpretations of historical
events?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
interpretations of historical events.
So history is a contentiousfield of study.
It always has been, and it'sclearly the case now, but it's
always been the case.
I am a collector of historicalbooks, and one of the books in
my library that I turn toregularly that helps me confront
(06:44):
, contend, fight, withstand,resist is a book published in
the mid-1930s by a preeminentscholar and historian named Dr
Carter Goodwin Woodson.
Dr Woodson got his PhD fromHarvard University in the early
part of the 20th century, but hecannot teach at Harvard or any
(07:07):
major white university, and sohe decided to carve out a path
of his own, and Dr Woodsoncreated an organization called
the Association for the Study ofNegro Life and History.
He created a new publicationcalled the Journal of Negro
History.
He started an initiative calledNegro History Week.
That became Negro History Month, black History Month, and in
(07:32):
the mid-1930s he was very muchconcerned that some historians,
some scholars, were teaching andputting forward a history that
was incorrect and intentionallydesigned to minimize the
influence and achievements ofblack people, and that this
interpretation was now shapingthe curriculum in schools, and
(07:57):
particularly public schools andin schools where you had
African-American enrollment.
And Dr Woodson was deeplyconcerned that this miseducation
of the Negro was impacting howpeople thought about themselves
and their future.
So that's one of the books Ilook at regularly the
Miseducation of the Negro, andit looks at how Woodson decided
(08:21):
that we must do our own work, wemust tell our own story.
We must tell our own story, wemust dig out for our own sources
and preserve those sources, andthen we take that material and
not only publish it asscholarship, but we also work
very closely with teachers andschools and students to make
sure an accurate andcomprehensive history is
(08:43):
presented in our curriculum, andso I do that regularly.
My job is to tell the truth,and it is to tell the whole
truth.
But truth is debatable in manyrespects, and so in the work I
do as a professor at thisuniversity, we are constantly
revising, we're constantlyreconstructing the history of
(09:07):
South Carolina and the nation.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Can you discuss the complex historical problem you
have solved through youranalytical skills?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
When I joined the faculty of the University of
South Carolina 25 years ago, Iwas told by some well-meaning
and seemingly well-positionedscholars that there was not much
of a civil rights movement inSouth Carolina, that that surely
could not be true.
And some said that there werenot any notable events and there
(09:47):
were not significant sources todocument what took place in
South Carolina in comparison toplaces like Mississippi or
Alabama.
And I had the good fortune ofcoming at the university and
being trained and mentored byseveral individuals who told me
a different account and adifferent history.
(10:10):
One of those persons was namedDr Tom Johnson, and Dr Johnson
was the editor of a book calledA True Likeness.
This is a copy of the book.
This book was published while Iwas in high school and I
remember vividly my greatgrandfather, smart Williams, and
his sister, aunt Baby, lookingat this book and wondering who
(10:34):
was this little boy, who are thepeople in this book?
And I wish Granddaddy and AuntBaby were here today because we
know exactly who this little boyis.
His name is Walter Adams, andthis has come through research
and talking and interviewingpeople.
We've now been able to identifyother people in this book
through research and engagingthe community and similarly,
(10:59):
we've now been able to tell adeeper and richer history of
black life in South Carolina andof the Civil Rights Movement.
Two other individuals who had atremendous impact on me were
Dean Willie Hereford, and DeanHereford was dean of students at
the University of SouthCarolina.
He was the first director of theAfrican-American Studies
(11:20):
program at the University ofSouth Carolina and he was a
trained archivist one of thevery first trained African
American archivists in thecountry and he taught me a great
deal about preserving therecord and going into
communities and talking tofamilies and churches and
organizations and encouragingthem to preserve their records
(11:40):
so that there will not be amiseducation, there will not be
a misinterpretation.
And the final person was a womannamed Dr Grace Jordan McFadden.
And Dr McFadden was the firstAfrican-American woman tenured
at the University of SouthCarolina and she was a
phenomenal and relentless publichistorian.
(12:01):
And Dr McFadden created a richcollection of oral interviews
about the civil rights movementin South Carolina and when you
listen carefully to thosestories and those who
recollections, you see veryclearly that anyone who makes
the claim that there was nomovement in this state are blind
and are intentionallymisinterpreting the record, are
(12:25):
blind and are intentionallymisinterpreting the record, and
so for the last 25 years I'veworked with colleagues and
community members and studentsto tell a deeper and richer
history of the black freedomstruggle in the state of South
Carolina.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
So how do you communicate your research
findings to a non-academicaudience?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
communicate your research findings to a
non-academic audience.
Well, the Civil Rights Centerof the University of South
Carolina was established in thefall of 2015.
And the center builds uponanother organization that I
helped establish called ColumbiaSC 63, our Story Matters, and
both of these initiativesColumbia 63 and the Center are
(13:06):
very much about engaging a widerpublic.
We have built up and we haveamplified great archival
collections, and we do so forreally a threefold purpose.
We want these materials to beutilized to advance teaching and
research, so that books can bepublished, articles can be
(13:28):
published, websites can bedesigned.
We also use these materials totrain teachers, and so we
develop curriculum, we developworkshops, we develop summer
institutes so that teachers arebetter equipped to use this
material in their classrooms andto engage younger audiences.
(13:49):
We have done art exhibits, wehave done art competitions, we
have walking tours down MainStreet, we have virtual tours
online, and we engage the public, and so, on a regular basis, we
are doing lectures and weengage the public, and so, on a
regular basis, we're doinglectures, we're doing oral
histories, and so we try to findwhatever capacity we can to
(14:10):
make sure that all of thismaterial is not locked in my
office.
It's not locked in my head thatwe are creating platforms that
people have access, and so oneof the things we're doing right
now with Richard Samuel Roberts,for example, when this book was
published.
This book has about 300 amazingimages of African-American life
(14:30):
in downtown Columbia.
So what we're doing now to makethis collection available.
We're now digitizing all of hisimages, which are about 6,000
images, and so very soon therewill be a web portal where
anyone around the world can goin and look closely at these
(14:51):
images and hopefully help usidentify who these people are.
And also, currently, at theColumbia Museum of Art, there is
an exhibit called Intersection,and in that exhibit anyone can
go in during the working hoursof the museum and see an amazing
display of photographs ofRichard Samuel Roberts
(15:14):
photographs from the famedphotographer Cecil Williams in
Orangeburg and can see whatAfrican American life looked
like in downtown Columbia fromthe period of reconstruction to
the 1970s, when so much of thatarea became the target of
eminent domain and urban renewaland has disappeared from the
(15:36):
landscape.
And so what we try to do is,through our outreach, through
our research, we try toreconstruct this history so that
it is more accessible to the,to the general public.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Two more questions.
Can you discuss any peerreviews you have received and
how you address the?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
feedback.
I am regularly reviewed as aprofessor on campus and as a
scholar.
I'm regularly reviewed as anadministrator on campus and
generally I've been positivelyreviewed.
I've had a very successfulcareer at the University of
(16:15):
South Carolina.
But the audience that concernsme most there are two audiences
that I want to be reviewedregularly and I'm paying careful
attention.
I you know I am always mindfulof being reviewed by colleagues
and professors.
That's very important to mycareer as I advance.
I'm mindful of how people thinkabout my scholarship and my
(16:37):
publications, but at the end ofthe day, I want to be measured
as a great professor and a greatteacher.
Day I want to be measured as agreat professor and a great
teacher, and how my studentsthink of me in the classroom as
a mentor and advisor is iscrucial.
I have made adjustments overtime as a result of that
feedback and I want to beregarded as a good public
(16:57):
servant and a good publichistorian, and so I am regularly
talking to people about what Ican do differently or better and
what the center and theColumbia 63 can do differently
or better as well, becauseultimately, we are servants of
the community, of the people,and I train all my students in
(17:17):
that way too, that I want totrain you to be a phenomenal and
fierce scholar and intellectual.
But the greater challenge is totake all that knowledge and to
go out and do something.
One of the people who had animpact on me was a woman named
Donella Brown Wilson.
Miss Wilson was a native ofFort Mott, South Carolina.
(17:40):
She comes to Columbia in the1920s, right around World War I,
and her mother was a domesticon this campus, a housekeeper,
and she has clear memories ofworking on this campus but not
being allowed to be a student onthis campus and never
envisioned that a day would comewhen a professor like myself
(18:04):
would be employed or students ofcolor would be enrolled.
And I had a chance to talk toMs Wilson, to interview Ms
Wilson, and at the end of one ofour conversations, after we had
spent time talking about hercareer as an educator, she
wanted to know what we weregoing to do with this
information, with theserecordings, and I explained.
(18:26):
I said, miss Wilson, we'll usethe material For teaching, we'll
use it for scholarship andpublic, public engagement.
And she says she said somethingthat actually is now part of
the civil rights centers mantra.
She said to us that history hasno purpose unless you use it,
(18:47):
and we use that now regularly.
So this is a photograph ofSmiths Wilson in downtown
Columbia in 1948.
And right next to it is thequote the 100 year old told me
history has no purpose unless weuse it, and so that's my job to
use the history to advanceteaching, research and public
(19:09):
engagement.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
And that's the last question here which strategies
do you use to build and maintainprofessional relationships
within the historical community?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I think the most effective strategy is how you
communicate, and I think whatyou want to do, what I want to
do, is train my team and totrain my students to be
versatile and to be able tospeak to multiple audiences and
to figure out how we educate thebroader public.
(19:46):
So I am a professor at theUniversity of South Carolina.
So who are my constituents?
My constituents are thestudents, the undergraduate and
undergraduate students who areenrolled here.
My constituents are the facultyand the staff who are employed
here.
But my constituents are alsothe state of South Carolina, its
(20:15):
citizens and its people, and weknow that we can't simply be
hemmed in by the horseshoe indowntown Columbia.
We must go forth and tell thestory, and so, on a regular
basis, I am in a car.
Sometimes I drive myself,someone drives me and we go all
over because we know there is anexpectation that we serve the
public.
And one of the things I know isreally important, particularly
(20:37):
in a time like this, is that westand firm in telling a complete
and comprehensive story ofSouth Carolina.
And so, for example, we tell astory about Reconstruction.
I want to make sure everycitizen of the state knows about
this man whose name is JosephRainey.
(20:57):
Now, who is Joseph Rainey?
Joseph Rainey is a native ofGeorgetown, south Carolina, a
barber by training, but JosephRainey is one of the founders of
this country.
Joseph Rainey was a member ofthe Reconstruction Legislature
of South Carolina.
Joseph Rainey is the firstAfrican-American to sit in the
(21:18):
House of Representatives of thestate of South Carolina In 1868,
.
Joseph Rainey is part of agroup of people who write a new
constitution for South Carolina,and in that new constitution it
says all schools that receivepublic funding must be open to
(21:40):
all residents of South Carolina,without regard to race or color
.
So what does that mean?
It means the public should nowknow that in 1870, in 1870, that
the University of SouthCarolina, where I sit now,
looked like this, and that themajority of the students from
(22:03):
1870 to 1877 wereAfrican-Americans, or from 1873
to 1877, and that they includedyoung women who were being
trained at what's called anormal school.
So this is a group of womentrained on this campus in the
(22:25):
1870s, including this womanwhose name was Celia Dow Saxon.
Now they're seated on thehorseshoe on the steps of a
place called Rutledge Chapel,which is still standing at the
University of South Carolina.
We want to make sure thatstudents know that in the 1940s
(22:45):
there was another movementcalled the Southern Negro Youth
Congress.
And what these students did?
They gathered at the TownshipAuditorium.
They gathered on the campus ofAllen University, at Benedict
College, to study the period ofReconstruction and to use the
lessons of Reconstruction intheir own fight against racial
(23:08):
injustice in the 20th century.
And the Southern Negro YouthCongress included people like
Majeska Monteith Simpkins, awoman named Annie Bell Weston.
It included a woman whose name,who was a professor.
Her name was Ethel Williams.
Ethel Williams later marries aminister named Roscoe Wilson who
(23:31):
is the pastor of the St JohnBaptist Church in Columbia.
And many may not know the nameEthel Wilson, but they may know
the name Asia Wilson.
And that was Asia Wilson'sgrandmother, who was very
instrumental in the SouthernNegro Youth Congress, very
instrumental in the SouthernNegro Youth Congress.
People in this state should know, and we're trying to tell, the
(23:54):
story of the sacrifices and thedetermination of average
citizens who were not seeking tomake history.
They were simply seeking abetter education for their
children.
So in the work we do we helptell the story of these families
from Somerton, south Carolina,who simply wanted to improve the
educational resources and theeducational outcome of their
students.
They did not know when theysigned a petition in the late
(24:17):
1940s they were going to becomepart of the landmark United
States Supreme Court case Brownversus the Board of Education.
And so today in America, manypeople can tell you exactly what
Brown did.
But many do not know that themost important component of the
(24:37):
Brown decision was what tookplace in South Carolina and the
efforts of ordinary parents wholost their livelihood.
They lost their land, they losttheir jobs for simply saying we
are citizens of this countryand we want every right and
(24:58):
privilege that comes with thatcitizenship, including an equal
education.
So who were the plaintiffs inBriggs v Elliott?
What did they endure?
What was the outcome of theirlitigation?
That is a story we tell quiteoften in the work we do at the
Civil Rights Center, and thereare many more stories I could
tell about how we link togetherthe historical record of South
(25:22):
Carolina and are determined andintentional to make sure that
history is accessible to anyonearound the world.
Well, I want to say that I'mdeeply honored to have the
opportunity to spend time withthe Savannah Grove congregation
(25:43):
and those who are listening tothe Native Drum podcast.
In a time like this, it iscritical that our churches and
our religious leaders play anactive role in making sure that
this history is heard, that thishistory is preserved and
protected and defended.
What we're doing, what we'redealing with right now, in terms
(26:05):
of whose history is valuableand whose history is important
or whose history is truthful, isan ongoing battle, and I think
it's really important, as wethink about the current struggle
to preserve our history, thatwe're mindful that there are
lessons to be gleaned andlessons to learn from the past
(26:25):
and lessons to learn from thepast.
So I'm excited about thebeginning of these conversations
and I look forward to spendingthe next several weeks with the
Savannah Grove Congregation.
Good evening and welcome to Native Drums.
Our guest on this podcast todayis Dr Bobby J Donaldson Jr,
Associate Professor of Historyand the Director of the Center
for Civil Rights, History andResearch at the University of
South Carolina, Columbia.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Greetings.
I'm Dr Bobby Donaldson.
I'm a professor of history atthe University of South Carolina
, where I serve as the executivedirector of the Center for
Civil Rights History andResearch, and I'm also the James
and Emily Clyburn EndowedProfessor at the University of
South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Can you describe your educational background and how
it prepared you for your career?
Can you?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
describe your educational background and how
it prepared you for your career.
So I'm a native of Augusta,georgia, and it was in Augusta
where I had my first training asa historian.
Before ever going to formalschool, I was trained by my
grandmother and my greatgrandparents on the front porch
and living rooms, listening tostories, and so the seed for
history and the seed forrecovering and documenting the
(01:06):
past were planted well before Iwent to kindergarten.
I went to elementary school ata place called WS Harnsby
Elementary, which was in an areaof Augusta called the Bottoms.
It was the lowest part of ourcity in terms of geography and
some thought the lowest part interms of class and socioeconomic
conditions.
However, I grew up in a veryrich home with supportive
(01:30):
grandparents and parents and acommunity.
At the school I attended, wsHornsby School, I was taught and
trained, more or less baptizedin black history.
The person who had the greatestinfluence on me was a woman
named Mrs CW Eason.
She was a school librarian andshe turned our school library
(01:51):
club into a black history month,or black history training
ground.
From there I became part of anexperiment in Augusta, where I
helped to.
I became part of the earlygroup of students who were part
of a performing arts magnetschool, and this pulled students
from across the city of Augustainto this performing arts
magnet school.
My art was theater and so Iperformed on the stage and still
(02:15):
am.
I graduated from that school andI went from sixth grade to 12th
grade, and that one schoolfinished there with every
intention of going off tocollege to become a lawyer.
And so I went to WesleyanUniversity in Middletown,
connecticut, where initially Imajored in political science
with every intention of becominga lawyer.
But while at Wesleyan I met anAfrican-American professor who
(02:39):
told me about an initiativecalled the Mellon Foundation.
And the Mellon Foundation wasan initiative that sought out
students of color to pursuecareers in the academy, and
first I had to understand whatthe academy was.
But through Dr Harris I gotthis fellowship to the Mellon
Foundation and I served as aMellon fellow as an
(03:00):
undergraduate.
I then left Wesleyan and wentto Emory University in Atlanta,
georgia, where I got my PhD inhistory.
Following my PhD work, I didtraining at Dartmouth College
and Harvard University and havebeen on the faculty of the
University of South Carolina nowfor 25 years.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
How has your education influenced your
approach to historical research?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How has your education influenced your
approach to historical research.
So I think I have training intwo levels.
I have formal training.
I've been trained in archivalresearch, in academic writing,
in scholarship, and that hasbeen quite beneficial to my
career.
But I've also been trained inwhat I call old school, the
informal training which Iincorporate every day.
(03:50):
One story I tell often thatshows the impact of teachers in
those early careers is when Iwas in middle school I was part
of a group called the NationalHistory Day, and this is an
ongoing program and the NationalHistory Day attempts to well
exposes young men and women tohistorical research.
(04:13):
And you can do an essay, youcan do a display board or you
can do a performance, and so Idecided to do a performance on
my great-grandfather, whose namewas Smart Williams.
That was his given name and Iknew him.
(04:33):
I took notes as I was livingand working with him, but when
he died it was right as thisproduction was taking place.
And so my teacher said you needto have additional research to
supplement what you'representing on stage, and so I
(04:53):
had to go and find primarysource material and secondary
source material aboutAfrican-American life in South
Carolina at the turn of the 20thcentury life in South Carolina
at the turn of the 20th century,and one of the documents that I
found, or one of the sources,was this book called Born to
(05:15):
Rebel, and at the time I did notknow who the author was.
The author was Dr BenjaminElijah Mays, one of the most
influential scholars, activists,theologians of the 20th century
, and Dr Mays wrote this bookBorn to Rebel to explain his
journey from rural SouthCarolina to becoming the mentor
of Martha Keene Jr, to becomingthe president of Morehouse
(05:39):
College.
And in this book it talks abouta young black boy from the
South who gets a PhD, whopursues a career in the academy,
and as I'm reading it I'm likethat sounds like an aspiration.
So I checked this book out ofthe Augusta Public Library over
40 years ago and this is thebook it is the same book that
(06:02):
I've not returned since thattime, in part because that book
and Dr Mays' example transformedhow I thought about the world,
how I thought about my ownfuture.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So how do you handle working with colleagues who have
different viewpoints orinterpretations of historical
events?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
interpretations of historical events.
So history is a contentiousfield of study.
It always has been, and it'sclearly the case now, but it's
always been the case.
I am a collector of historicalbooks, and one of the books in
my library that I turn toregularly that helps me confront
(06:44):
, contend, fight, withstand,resist is a book published in
the mid-1930s by a preeminentscholar and historian named Dr
Carter Goodwin Woodson.
Dr Woodson got his PhD fromHarvard University in the early
part of the 20th century, but hecannot teach at Harvard or any
(07:07):
major white university, and sohe decided to carve out a path
of his own, and Dr Woodsoncreated an organization called
the Association for the Study ofNegro Life and History.
He created a new publicationcalled the Journal of Negro
History.
He started an initiative calledNegro History Week.
That became Negro History Month, black History Month, and in
(07:32):
the mid-1930s he was very muchconcerned that some historians,
some scholars, were teaching andputting forward a history that
was incorrect and intentionallydesigned to minimize the
influence and achievements ofblack people, and that this
interpretation was now shapingthe curriculum in schools, and
(07:57):
particularly public schools andin schools where you had
African-American enrollment.
And Dr Woodson was deeplyconcerned that this miseducation
of the Negro was impacting howpeople thought about themselves
and their future.
So that's one of the books Ilook at regularly the
Miseducation of the Negro, andit looks at how Woodson decided
(08:21):
that we must do our own work, wemust tell our own story.
We must tell our own story, wemust dig out for our own sources
and preserve those sources, andthen we take that material and
not only publish it asscholarship, but we also work
very closely with teachers andschools and students to make
sure an accurate andcomprehensive history is
(08:43):
presented in our curriculum, andso I do that regularly.
My job is to tell the truth,and it is to tell the whole
truth.
But truth is debatable in manyrespects, and so in the work I
do as a professor at thisuniversity, we are constantly
revising, we're constantlyreconstructing the history of
(09:07):
South Carolina and the nation.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Can you discuss the complex historical problem you
have solved through youranalytical skills?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
When I joined the faculty of the University of
South Carolina 25 years ago, Iwas told by some well-meaning
and seemingly well-positionedscholars that there was not much
of a civil rights movement inSouth Carolina, that that surely
could not be true.
And some said that there werenot any notable events and there
(09:47):
were not significant sources todocument what took place in
South Carolina in comparison toplaces like Mississippi or
Alabama.
And I had the good fortune ofcoming at the university and
being trained and mentored byseveral individuals who told me
a different account and adifferent history.
(10:10):
One of those persons was namedDr Tom Johnson, and Dr Johnson
was the editor of a book calledA True Likeness.
This is a copy of the book.
This book was published while Iwas in high school and I
remember vividly my greatgrandfather, smart Williams, and
his sister, aunt Baby, lookingat this book and wondering who
(10:34):
was this little boy, who are thepeople in this book?
And I wish Granddaddy and AuntBaby were here today because we
know exactly who this little boyis.
His name is Walter Adams, andthis has come through research
and talking and interviewingpeople.
We've now been able to identifyother people in this book
through research and engagingthe community and similarly,
(10:59):
we've now been able to tell adeeper and richer history of
black life in South Carolina andof the Civil Rights Movement.
Two other individuals who had atremendous impact on me were
Dean Willie Hereford, and DeanHereford was dean of students at
the University of SouthCarolina.
He was the first director of theAfrican-American Studies
(11:20):
program at the University ofSouth Carolina and he was a
trained archivist one of thevery first trained African
American archivists in thecountry and he taught me a great
deal about preserving therecord and going into
communities and talking tofamilies and churches and
organizations and encouragingthem to preserve their records
(11:40):
so that there will not be amiseducation, there will not be
a misinterpretation.
And the final person was a womannamed Dr Grace Jordan McFadden.
And Dr McFadden was the firstAfrican-American woman tenured
at the University of SouthCarolina and she was a
phenomenal and relentless publichistorian.
(12:01):
And Dr McFadden created a richcollection of oral interviews
about the civil rights movementin South Carolina and when you
listen carefully to thosestories and those who
recollections, you see veryclearly that anyone who makes
the claim that there was nomovement in this state are blind
and are intentionallymisinterpreting the record, are
(12:25):
blind and are intentionallymisinterpreting the record, and
so for the last 25 years I'veworked with colleagues and
community members and studentsto tell a deeper and richer
history of the black freedomstruggle in the state of South
Carolina.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
So how do you communicate your research
findings to a non-academicaudience?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
communicate your research findings to a
non-academic audience.
Well, the Civil Rights Centerof the University of South
Carolina was established in thefall of 2015.
And the center builds uponanother organization that I
helped establish called ColumbiaSC 63, our Story Matters, and
both of these initiativesColumbia 63 and the Center are
(13:06):
very much about engaging a widerpublic.
We have built up and we haveamplified great archival
collections, and we do so forreally a threefold purpose.
We want these materials to beutilized to advance teaching and
research, so that books can bepublished, articles can be
(13:28):
published, websites can bedesigned.
We also use these materials totrain teachers, and so we
develop curriculum, we developworkshops, we develop summer
institutes so that teachers arebetter equipped to use this
material in their classrooms andto engage younger audiences.
(13:49):
We have done art exhibits, wehave done art competitions, we
have walking tours down MainStreet, we have virtual tours
online, and we engage the public, and so, on a regular basis, we
are doing lectures and weengage the public, and so, on a
regular basis, we're doinglectures, we're doing oral
histories, and so we try to findwhatever capacity we can to
(14:10):
make sure that all of thismaterial is not locked in my
office.
It's not locked in my head thatwe are creating platforms that
people have access, and so oneof the things we're doing right
now with Richard Samuel Roberts,for example, when this book was
published.
This book has about 300 amazingimages of African-American life
(14:30):
in downtown Columbia.
So what we're doing now to makethis collection available.
We're now digitizing all of hisimages, which are about 6,000
images, and so very soon therewill be a web portal where
anyone around the world can goin and look closely at these
(14:51):
images and hopefully help usidentify who these people are.
And also, currently, at theColumbia Museum of Art, there is
an exhibit called Intersection,and in that exhibit anyone can
go in during the working hoursof the museum and see an amazing
display of photographs ofRichard Samuel Roberts
(15:14):
photographs from the famedphotographer Cecil Williams in
Orangeburg and can see whatAfrican American life looked
like in downtown Columbia fromthe period of reconstruction to
the 1970s, when so much of thatarea became the target of
eminent domain and urban renewaland has disappeared from the
(15:36):
landscape.
And so what we try to do is,through our outreach, through
our research, we try toreconstruct this history so that
it is more accessible to the,to the general public.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Two more questions.
Can you discuss any peerreviews you have received and
how you address the?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
feedback.
I am regularly reviewed as aprofessor on campus and as a
scholar.
I'm regularly reviewed as anadministrator on campus and
generally I've been positivelyreviewed.
I've had a very successfulcareer at the University of
(16:15):
South Carolina.
But the audience that concernsme most there are two audiences
that I want to be reviewedregularly and I'm paying careful
attention.
I you know I am always mindfulof being reviewed by colleagues
and professors.
That's very important to mycareer as I advance.
I'm mindful of how people thinkabout my scholarship and my
(16:37):
publications, but at the end ofthe day, I want to be measured
as a great professor and a greatteacher.
Day I want to be measured as agreat professor and a great
teacher, and how my studentsthink of me in the classroom as
a mentor and advisor is iscrucial.
I have made adjustments overtime as a result of that
feedback and I want to beregarded as a good public
(16:57):
servant and a good publichistorian, and so I am regularly
talking to people about what Ican do differently or better and
what the center and theColumbia 63 can do differently
or better as well, becauseultimately, we are servants of
the community, of the people,and I train all my students in
(17:17):
that way too, that I want totrain you to be a phenomenal and
fierce scholar and intellectual.
But the greater challenge is totake all that knowledge and to
go out and do something.
One of the people who had animpact on me was a woman named
Donella Brown Wilson.
Miss Wilson was a native ofFort Mott, South Carolina.
(17:40):
She comes to Columbia in the1920s, right around World War I,
and her mother was a domesticon this campus, a housekeeper,
and she has clear memories ofworking on this campus but not
being allowed to be a student onthis campus and never
envisioned that a day would comewhen a professor like myself
(18:04):
would be employed or students ofcolor would be enrolled.
And I had a chance to talk toMs Wilson, to interview Ms
Wilson, and at the end of one ofour conversations, after we had
spent time talking about hercareer as an educator, she
wanted to know what we weregoing to do with this
information, with theserecordings, and I explained.
(18:26):
I said, miss Wilson, we'll usethe material For teaching, we'll
use it for scholarship andpublic, public engagement.
And she says she said somethingthat actually is now part of
the civil rights centers mantra.
She said to us that history hasno purpose unless you use it,
(18:47):
and we use that now regularly.
So this is a photograph ofSmiths Wilson in downtown
Columbia in 1948.
And right next to it is thequote the 100 year old told me
history has no purpose unless weuse it, and so that's my job to
use the history to advanceteaching, research and public
(19:09):
engagement.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
And that's the last question here which strategies
do you use to build and maintainprofessional relationships
within the historical community?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I think the most effective strategy is how you
communicate, and I think whatyou want to do, what I want to
do, is train my team and totrain my students to be
versatile and to be able tospeak to multiple audiences and
to figure out how we educate thebroader public.
(19:46):
So I am a professor at theUniversity of South Carolina.
So who are my constituents?
My constituents are thestudents, the undergraduate and
undergraduate students who areenrolled here.
My constituents are the facultyand the staff who are employed
here.
But my constituents are alsothe state of South Carolina, its
(20:15):
citizens and its people, and weknow that we can't simply be
hemmed in by the horseshoe indowntown Columbia.
We must go forth and tell thestory, and so, on a regular
basis, I am in a car.
Sometimes I drive myself,someone drives me and we go all
over because we know there is anexpectation that we serve the
public.
And one of the things I know isreally important, particularly
(20:37):
in a time like this, is that westand firm in telling a complete
and comprehensive story ofSouth Carolina.
And so, for example, we tell astory about Reconstruction.
I want to make sure everycitizen of the state knows about
this man whose name is JosephRainey.
(20:57):
Now, who is Joseph Rainey?
Joseph Rainey is a native ofGeorgetown, south Carolina, a
barber by training, but JosephRainey is one of the founders of
this country.
Joseph Rainey was a member ofthe Reconstruction Legislature
of South Carolina.
Joseph Rainey is the firstAfrican-American to sit in the
(21:18):
House of Representatives of thestate of South Carolina In 1868,
.
Joseph Rainey is part of agroup of people who write a new
constitution for South Carolina,and in that new constitution it
says all schools that receivepublic funding must be open to
(21:40):
all residents of South Carolina,without regard to race or color
.
So what does that mean?
It means the public should nowknow that in 1870, in 1870, that
the University of SouthCarolina, where I sit now,
looked like this, and that themajority of the students from
(22:03):
1870 to 1877 wereAfrican-Americans, or from 1873
to 1877, and that they includedyoung women who were being
trained at what's called anormal school.
So this is a group of womentrained on this campus in the
(22:25):
1870s, including this womanwhose name was Celia Dow Saxon.
Now they're seated on thehorseshoe on the steps of a
place called Rutledge Chapel,which is still standing at the
University of South Carolina.
We want to make sure thatstudents know that in the 1940s
(22:45):
there was another movementcalled the Southern Negro Youth
Congress.
And what these students did?
They gathered at the TownshipAuditorium.
They gathered on the campus ofAllen University, at Benedict
College, to study the period ofReconstruction and to use the
lessons of Reconstruction intheir own fight against racial
(23:08):
injustice in the 20th century.
And the Southern Negro YouthCongress included people like
Majeska Monteith Simpkins, awoman named Annie Bell Weston.
It included a woman whose name,who was a professor.
Her name was Ethel Williams.
Ethel Williams later marries aminister named Roscoe Wilson who
(23:31):
is the pastor of the St JohnBaptist Church in Columbia.
And many may not know the nameEthel Wilson, but they may know
the name Asia Wilson.
And that was Asia Wilson'sgrandmother, who was very
instrumental in the SouthernNegro Youth Congress, very
instrumental in the SouthernNegro Youth Congress.
People in this state should know, and we're trying to tell, the
(23:54):
story of the sacrifices and thedetermination of average
citizens who were not seeking tomake history.
They were simply seeking abetter education for their
children.
So in the work we do we helptell the story of these families
from Somerton, south Carolina,who simply wanted to improve the
educational resources and theeducational outcome of their
students.
They did not know when theysigned a petition in the late
(24:17):
1940s they were going to becomepart of the landmark United
States Supreme Court case Brownversus the Board of Education.
And so today in America, manypeople can tell you exactly what
Brown did.
But many do not know that themost important component of the
(24:37):
Brown decision was what tookplace in South Carolina and the
efforts of ordinary parents wholost their livelihood.
They lost their land, they losttheir jobs for simply saying we
are citizens of this countryand we want every right and
(24:58):
privilege that comes with thatcitizenship, including an equal
education.
So who were the plaintiffs inBriggs v Elliott?
What did they endure?
What was the outcome of theirlitigation?
That is a story we tell quiteoften in the work we do at the
Civil Rights Center, and thereare many more stories I could
tell about how we link togetherthe historical record of South
(25:22):
Carolina and are determined andintentional to make sure that
history is accessible to anyonearound the world.
Well, I want to say that I'mdeeply honored to have the
opportunity to spend time withthe Savannah Grove congregation
(25:43):
and those who are listening tothe Native Drum podcast.
In a time like this, it iscritical that our churches and
our religious leaders play anactive role in making sure that
this history is heard, that thishistory is preserved and
protected and defended.
What we're doing, what we'redealing with right now, in terms
(26:05):
of whose history is valuableand whose history is important
or whose history is truthful, isan ongoing battle, and I think
it's really important, as wethink about the current struggle
to preserve our history, thatwe're mindful that there are
lessons to be gleaned andlessons to learn from the past
(26:25):
and lessons to learn from thepast.
So I'm excited about thebeginning of these conversations
and I look forward to spendingthe next several weeks with the
Savannah Grove Congregation.
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