Learn about the movers and shakers of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina and nationally in the United States.
Biographies are provided with permission from the exhibit "A More Convenient Season: Civil Rights in South Carolina, 1948-1968." Installed 2005 at the South Carolina State Museum, courtesy of Cecil Williams and the I.P. Stanback Museum.
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A pioneer among African-American business leaders, Arthur J.H. Clement, Jr., is credited with promoting positive race relations, spurring community development and enhancing business incentives in his...
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Fearful that continued resistance to integration would tarnish the Greenville's image as well as limit economic opportunities, wealthy businessman Arthur MaGill and the Rev. John Haley of Westminster...
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Benjamin Elijah Mays was born in the town of Epworth, southeast of Greenwood, August 1894. A son of former slaves, Mays' childhood played a key role in shaping the man that he would become. His...
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A veteran in the civil rights movement, Bernice Robinson's outstanding voter education work contributed to the election of many African American public officials in the South. The native Charlestonian...
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Cecil J. Williams is the author of Freedom & Justice. He is a noted civil rights photographer. At 14-years old, Williams was hired by JET Magazine to record the images of the civil rights movement in...
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Due West native Charlayne Hunter-Gault was one of the first of two African Americans to integrate the University of Georgia. She later wins fame as a co-anchor reporter for the PBS/McNeil Lehrer...
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In 1968, Sellers was then a student at Harvard University. He was visiting Orangeburg as a recruiter for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On the night of February eighth, he...
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Constance Baker Motley, an NAACP attorney, rests her body and feet after a day-long legal skirmish in a South Carolina federal courtroom battling with Clemson College officials who sought to prevent...
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Eleven months after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the eyes of the nation focused on Charleston, South Carolina, where a conflict developed over striking workers. On March 20, 1969 Mrs...