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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The first chapters of the NAACP began in Charleston and Columbia in 1917. By 1929 a total of 12 chapters had been formed in the state. At that time the state organizations focused on registering Black...
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A life member of the NAACP, Brown served as local NAACP chapter president from 1953 to 1960. During his tenure the local membership increased from 100 to 1,000 persons. Locally, Brown focused on...
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Harry Briggs was a World War II veteran. Briggs, a gas station attendant, and his wife, Eliza allowed Rev. DeLaine to use their home for people to sign the petition that became Briggs v Elliott...
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The son of educators Robert and Mabel Hughes Boulware, Harold Boulware attended Johnson C. Smith and Howard University Law School. After graduation he returned to South Carolina and established a...
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Gloria (Rackley) Blackwell and her daughter Luma. Gloria and her daughter walk beside Whittaker Elementary School where Mrs. Blackwell was a teacher before she was dismissed for her participation in...
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In 1920, Mayesville native Mary McLeod Bethune founded Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona, Florida. In 1935, Bethune was named as head of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth...
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This building, built in 1901, was occupied by McCrory's Five & Dime from 1937 to 1997. On February 12, 1960, black students from Friendship Jr. College in Rock Hill were denied service at the McCrory...
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South Carolina State University was founded in 1896 as the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, & Mechanical College of S.C., with its origins in the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890...
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Constructed in 1936, Dennis was the first high school for African Americans in Lee County, including Bishopville and nearby rural areas. In contrast with the much larger Bishopville High School, which...
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The building that housed Summerton High School from circa 1936 to the mid-1960s is located at 12 South Church Street in Summerton. In the middle of the twentieth century, the all-white high school was...
