Black History Month is celebrated every February to honor the achievements of African Americans who have shaped American history. Historian Carter G. Woodson hoped to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization by establishing Negro History Week. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that included both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass' birthdays. The week was later expanded to a month in 1976 during the United States bicentennial.
PHOTO: On March 20, 1969, Black hospital workers at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston went on strike to protest the firing of twelve employees and to call for higher wages and union recognition.
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Joseph McDomick, Jr, civil rights activist and former Penn Center employee, talks about why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to visit the Penn Center on many occasions during the civil rights...
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Cecil Williams owns Cecil Williams Photography in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He explains how his profession has evolved over the years.
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Cecil Williams discusses each of his first cameras and his beginnings in the business.
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In 1960, Ernest Finney (1931-2017) began his law practice in Sumter, South Carolina, specializing in civil rights advocacy and defense. He represented the Friendship 9, a group of black college...
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"From the Be to the Bop: The Musical Legacy of Dizzy Gillespie." An excerpt from South Carolina ETV's Carolina Stories.
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Cecil J. Williams did a great deal of civil rights photography. Even as a young boy, before he understood what was going on, he took many important photographs.
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Cecil Williams talks about his process for taking photographs in his studio.
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Cecil J. Williams is a native of Orangeburg, South Carolina. He began taking documentary photographs of his community at the age of nine. By 15, he was working professionally as a freelancer for Jet...
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One of three astronauts inducted into the South Carolina Hall Of Fame, Charles Bolden, Jr. flew on four space shuttle missions while an astronaut, and in 2009 was appointed by President Obama to be...
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Benjamin Mays (1894-1984) was a minister, educator, scholar and social activist. He was known as the "Father of the Civil Rights Movement."
