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.
Video
Strawberry Schoolhouse was a private school for African–American children who lived at Hobcaw Barony, built for them by Bernard Baruch in 1915. This was a one room schoolhouse with one teacher for...
Video
B.S. Plair of Rock Hill, South Carolina, served for the Montford Point Marines in 1945, until he was honorably discharged in 1946. The Montford Point Marines were based in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina...
Video
February is African American History Month. Some may ask “Why celebrate African American history...isn’t that American history?” Absolutely, but unfortunately, for hundreds of years, much of the...
Photo
In 1916, Septima Clark was a young African American teacher looking forward to her first teaching assignment in South Carolina. There, she learned firsthand about the poverty and inequality in...
Photo
Abolitionist Sarah Grimké was born into a wealthy slaveholding Charleston family in 1792. After experiencing the injustices of slavery firsthand, she became a noted speaker for the antislavery...
Photo
Educator Mary McLeod Bethune began a school for needy African Americans in 1904 with $1.50, five students, and a passion to teach. Her school became Bethune-Cookman College and currently has over 2...
Photo
Born a slave, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom and became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. As a conductor, she helped over 300 slaves find their own freedom. After the Civil War, she cared...
Document
The Civil Rights Movement has been part of an ongoing struggle since enslaved Africans were first brought to America. The modern Civil Rights Movement began in the 1940s and many changes had taken...
Video
The Friendship Nine consisted of students from Friendship Junior College. These students are best known for their historic one-mile walk from Friendship Junior College to McCrory’s Variety Store on...
Video
On January 31, 1961, civil rights history was made in South Carolina. African American students from Friendship Junior College walked a mile to stage a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter on Main...
