View All Civil Rights Items in Discovery
Black history in the Spartanburg area remains obscured by the biases and scarcity of early records. By 1790, the first year with a reliable population estimate, Spartanburg County was home to 866 black slaves and 27 “free persons not white,” representing about 10% of the total population. At the time of emancipation, some 8,300 African-Americans lived in Spartanburg County, around 30% […]
This curated collection brings together diverse archival footage from the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC) documenting the Civil Rights movement, and the long struggle for equality and social justice in South Carolina and beyond. Comprised mainly of local television news outtakes from MIRC’s WIS-TV, WLTX-TV, and WBTW-TV News Collections, the digital […]
The South Carolina State Parks Civilian Conservation Corps Architectural Plans Collection consists of architectural drawings, plans and blueprints of South Carolina State Parks created during the Civilian Conservation Corps-era, 1934-1942. The plans were produced for administrative purposes by employees of the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service and the South Carolina Commission of […]
Minutes and reports of Clemson University’s Board of Trustees from 1888 to the present. Since its beginnings in 1888, the Clemson University Board of Trustees is the main governing body for the university. As defined in Thomas Green Clemson’s will, the Board of Trustees consists of seven Trustees who select their successors and six Trustees […]
The Cleveland L. Sellers, Jr. Papers is comprised of papers relating to the Orangeburg Massacre, February 5-8, 1968. Included in the collection is a poem, a collection of Western Union telegrams, press releases, a fact sheet created by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, flyers, photographs, and a resolution from the Student Legislative Council of the University […]
Esau Jenkins (1910-1972) was born and raised on Johns Island, South Carolina. With very little formal education, he became a businessman and civil rights leader. Jenkins founded the Progressive Club in 1948, which encouraged local African Americans to register to vote, through the aid of Citizenship Schools, a topic he was educated in by his […]
Eugene Avery Adams (1886-1958) was a minister in the African American Episcopal Church and a leader in the fields of education, civil rights, and business. He was a founder of Bell Street High School in Columbia and a trustee of Allen University. He also helped start the South Carolina Citizens Committee, a state-wide organization that […]
Stories of desegregation often focus on the urban schools that were in the spotlight thanks to their media coverage or the conflicts surrounding them, from Little Rock to Boston. Much less attention is paid to schools in rural communities, outside the media glare. In addition, the period before integration is often neglected, or discussed solely […]
The collection contains seven million feet of nitrate motion picture film and four million feet of safety motion picture film documenting the national and global politics and culture from 1919 through 1934 and from September 1942 through August 1944. Paper holdings provide detailed notes generated by original camera crews as well as ephemera related to […]
The Local Television News Collections at Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC) comprise approximately 1.5 million feet of 16mm motion picture film outtakes dating from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, donated by several South Carolina television stations. These outtakes document over two decades of local people and events, as well as reportage surrounding significant […]
Activist Modjeska Simkins of Columbia, S.C. served as the South Carolina State Secretary for the NAACP, 1941-1957; as Campaign Director for the renovation of Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital, 1944-1950; as Public Relations Director for the Richland County Citizens Committee, 1956-1988; and as President of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, 1972-1974. She also helped found, in 1921, […]
A Columbia civil rights activist, Simkins served as the South Carolina State Secretary for the NAACP, 1941 to 1957. She also had leadership roles in the renovation of Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital and the Richland County Citizens Committee. Simkins was a founder, in 1921, of the Victory Savings Bank of Columbia. Now called South Carolina Community […]
The Negro Travelers’ Green Book was a travel guide series published from 1936 to 1964 by Victor H. Green. It was intended to provide African American motorists and tourists with the information necessary to board, dine, and sightsee comfortably and safely during the era of segregation.
In their own words, get a personal glimpse from residents of Columbia or Richland County into their experiences of life in the past! This collection of oral histories from 1985 to the present was collected by Richland Library staff and volunteers. Our oral history collection includes audio or video recordings as well as searchable transcripts […]
School Desegregation in the Southern and Border States is a series of reports compiled between 1956 – 1968 by the Southern Education Reporting Services. These reports provide statistics and information about desegregation of public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington District […...
This scrapbook contains images, newspaper clippings, and correspondence from the life of Septima P. Clark, a Charleston educator and civil rights activist. Septima Poinsette Clark was born in Charleston, S.C. on 3 May 1898, the daughter of Peter Poinsette, who grew up a slave on the plantation of Joel Roberts Poinsett (with conflicting data saying […]
Sol Blatt (1895-1986) represented Barnwell, Bamburg, and Allendale Counties in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1933 until his death in 1986. He also served as Speaker of the House almost continuously from 1937 until 1973. These documents reveal Blatt’s thoughts on issues such as race, economic development, taxes, nuclear energy, and a number […]
Comprised of over 40 hours of motion picture film and video, photographs, paper records and equipment, this collection documents the careers of two distinguished news cameramen who were also father and son. Through home movies and photographs the collection provides rare insight into the personal lives of news cameramen from the silent and early sound […]
The images in this collection are selections from the photographic archives of The State Media Company, which are stored at Richland Library. This digital collection will continue to grow as more historic photographs are digitized. A finding aid for the archive is available. The photographs in the archive date from 1955 to 2002 and were taken by […]
