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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Born at Maddens Station, South Carolina, Culbertson was the sixth of 14 children. A Greenville defense attorney he was an advocate for the needs of all people, regardless of race, or the ability to...
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John H. McCray, a 1931 graduate of the Avery Institute, grew up in the Lincolnville area of Charleston County. In 1938 he became editor and publisher of The Lighthouse and Informer, which in 1941...
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In 1970 Harper received his law degree from the University of South Carolina where he specialized in constitutional law. He was the second African-American to graduate from the law school. Harper was...
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John Wesley Stroman was a student leader at SC State during the student protests. Cleveland Sellers has erroneously been identified as the leader of the students at South Carolina State when it was...
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Joseph McDomick, Jr. was born on May 1, 1938, in St. Francisville, Louisiana. In 1964 Judge McDomick began a thirty-year career with the Penn Center, serving as a field supervisor. Under his...
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In 1947 Judge J. Waties Waring's monumental ruling in the George Elmore suit (Elmore v. Rice) eliminated the all-white Democratic primary system in South Carolina. For the first time since 1876, the...
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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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Levi Pearson, and other parents whose children attended Scotts Branch High School, wanted the county to provide buses for their children. Mr. Pearson was encouraged by Rev. Joseph Armstrong DeLaine...
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Malcolm X was the spokesman for the Muslims. He was assigned to defend and explain Muslimism at television debates, rallies, press interviews and whenever Muslims are on trial.
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A native of Bennettsville, Marian Wright Edelman In the mid-1960s as a human rights activist began directing the Legal Defense and Education Fund for the Mississippi NAACP. As the first African...