Mamie Garvin Fields

Black History Month

An educator, activist, and community leader, Mamie Garvin Fields grew up in Charleston and spent many of her adult years here as a teacher. In 1916, she joined the City of Charleston Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, a group that united clubs around Charleston together in cultural and charitable activities, and was a lifelong clubwoman, expanding her role when she retired. As an educator, her work went beyond the traditional classroom – she helped with adult education classes on John’s and James Islands in the 1920s and created the first Vacation Bible School for migrant workers during the Depression. After her retirement from teaching in the 1940s, she led the Marion Wilkinson Home for Girls for two years, working with girls who needed a home, and she helped to establish Charleston’s first public daycare center. Her life was one of service - to the Black people of Charleston, to the community as a whole, and to the next generation of Charlestonians.

Throughout February, we’ve been highlighting Black members of the Lowcountry community, discussing the lives they led, the work they did and the impact they made.

Edmund Thornton Jenkins

Black History Month

Edmund Thornton Jenkins grew up surrounded by music. He was the son of the Reverend Daniel Jenkins, who founded Jenkins Orphanage and the world-famous band of children who lived there. He eventually attended Morehouse College and later served as Director of Bands for the children’s home, until he was invited to attend London’s Royal Academy of Music in 1914. He continued to study under musicians in London and Paris, but eventually composed a tribute to his native city. Charlestonia honored the city that Edmund grew up in but chose not to make his home, possibly because of how many more opportunities he had outside of the American South at the time. The composition was performed in London and Belgium, but not in Charleston – until 1996, when performed by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra as a part of “Edmund Jenkins Homecoming Month.” Edmund composed many other pieces, including an operetta, called Afram. He died in 1926 in Paris after an illness.

Throughout February, we’re highlighting Black members of the Lowcountry community, discussing the lives they led, the work they did and the impact they made.

Esau Jenkins

Black History Month

Esau Jenkins was born in 1910 on Johns Island and left school in the fourth grade to work the fields with his family. But he would go on to ensure the children and adults on the island always had a way to get an education. In 1945, after furthering his schooling through night classes and correspondence courses, Jenkins purchased a bus in order to bring children from John's Island into the city’s public schools. He later offered rides to adults to their jobs, but it wasn’t just transportation. On the rides, Jenkins taught the adults to recite passages from the state constitution, a requirement to vote at the time.

Among his many civil rights efforts over the decades, Jenkins created the Progressive Club, which raised money to open a grocery store and gas station on the island. He helped to found a Citizenship School that taught people to read so that they could pass voting tests and he encouraged the City of Charleston to hire their first Black bus drivers. In the 1960s, he extended his efforts to the Hispanic migrant labor force that came to the area. Jenkins died in 1972 and was inducted in the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2003.

Throughout February, we’re highlighting Black members of the Lowcountry community, discussing the lives they led, the work they did and the impact they made.

Denmark Vesey

Black History Month

Throughout this month, we’re highlighting Black members of the Lowcountry community – the lives they led, the work they did, and the impact they made. Some of the people in our posts are connected to the story of Second Presbyterian Church, others are leaders or activists who shaped movements of their time.

Denmark Vesey was probably born in St. Thomas and brought as an enslaved person to Bermuda and then Charleston. He was able to purchase his freedom when he was 32 years old and worked as a carpenter. He was an active member of Second Presbyterian Church, where he became a communicant in April of 1817 – a member entitled to take communion, which was a big commitment at the time. He may have eventually helped found the church that became Emanuel AME. But in 1822, Vesey was accused of leading a plot to liberate enslaved people and rise up against their enslavers. Before the alleged plot could be executed, Vesey was arrested in June and he was hanged in July, along with 35 other men who were accused of being involved. In the aftermath, enslavers took many more precautions, and the Negro Seaman Act was passed, requiring Black sailors on ships docked in Charleston to be imprisoned while the ships were in port. The act was ruled unconstitutional, and this became one of the states’ rights issues that ultimately led to the Civil War.

Rosetta Simmons

Honoring the significant contribution of Charleston's Rosetta Simmons.

Rosetta Simmons, pictured between Coretta Scott King and Juanita Abernathy, went on from Burke High School to work as a Licensed Practical Nurse at the Medical College Hospital, then the Charleston Memorial Hospital in 1966. She became frustrated with the unequal treatment African American workers faced at the hospital, and began meeting with local activists and union leaders to organize the hospital workers in striking for better pay and fair treatment.

“Dignity and respect.” Rosetta Simmons said these were her main concerns as an organizer of the Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike. In her 2009 oral history she explained, “That was my main goal, dignity and respect… Management needed to know that we are human beings, and we ought to be treated with dignity and respect.”

As an organizer, Simmons felt it was important to grab the city’s attention by always having strikers on the picket line. Simmons worked with SCLC to organize shifts for the strikers, keeping the line filled at all hours of the day.

When the strike ended, Simmons worked closely with the movement’s leadership to play a valuable role in the rehiring of her associates. The strike ended in the summer of 1969, but Simmons was not rehired until November. During these months of negotiating to get her job back, Simmons remained involved in civil rights in Charleston by helping register over 800 African American to vote. She also became the vice president of the local union, 1199B, and remained an active member of the union until her retirement in 1996 after 29 years of service.

Listen to more of Rosetta Simmon’s oral history through the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. And read more about the Charleston Hospital Workers Movement here.

This Black History month we are honoring the significant contribution of Black people in our community.

Septima Clark

Honoring the significant contribution of Charleston's Septima Clark.

Septima Poinsette Clark was called the mother of the civil rights movement. She was a teacher for 40 years and has a long legacy of education and teacher activism. She fought to allow Black teachers in Charleston classrooms and was later instrumental in gaining pay equity for Black teachers in South Carolina, and her citizenship workshops influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.

Septima started teaching on Johns Island because Black teachers were not allowed in Charleston schools at the time. She taught for 40 years mostly in Charleston and Columbia until she was fired because she refused to resign from the NAACP after South Carolina passed a statute that prohibited city and state employees from belonging to civil rights organizations. She went on to develop citizenship workshops full time that King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference took nationwide. They were designed not only to promote adult literacy but to educate people about civics and get them involved in their communities.

Septima pioneered the concept of citizenship schools and went on to create over 800 of them across the South. The schools are credited with helping three-quarters of a million African Americans register to vote by the end of the 1960s. She retired from SCLC in 1970 and was elected to the Charleston School Board in 1975. The governor reinstated her pension the next year after declaring her 1956 termination unjust. She also published two memoirs, earned her master's degree, and was given a Living Legacy Award by President Carter. Septima Clark saw herself as “just a teacher,” but she mothered a movement and helped shape an entire country for the better.

This Black History month we are honoring the significant contribution of Black people in our community.

Prints in Clay

A Charleston visual exhibit display at the Gaillard in 2019 told the story of the Slave Dwelling Project, with a selection of photographs highlighting the historic dwellings, in various states of preservation including Dontre Major's 'Prints in Clay.'

Several of the images exhibited were taken here at Second Presbyterian Church. Dontre Major who is a studio art alumnus of the College of Charleston was welcomed into the graveyard and bell tower to photograph the evidence of the men, women, and children who would have built the bricks and structures that are the very fabric of our city. These fingerprints found in bricks of antebellum buildings are tangible evidence of the presence of the enslaved people who made the bricks that helped build this nation.

Find out more about 'Prints in Clay' here. Support the Slave Dwelling Project and find out more about the project here.

This Black History month we will be honoring the significant contribution of Black people in our community.

Black History Month

Black History Month is not just about one month, but a commitment to education, celebration, and affirmation of Black lives every day. We see, value, and honor Black people in our lives and communities, all those who came before, and all those making history today. 

On the anniversary of this Black History Month, may we all recommit to lifting up black authors, thinkers, and movement makers and intentionally diversify our bookshelves, lives, and communities throughout the year.

This Black History month we will be honoring the significant contribution of Black people in our community.