VOLUME
61 ISSUE № 02
Historically Speaking
WINTER 2021 A NEWSLETTER OF HISTORIC COLUMBIA
From the Executive Director
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arly in my years of service as director of Historic Columbia, I often was asked by staff and people outside the organization if Historic Columbia would take over the stewardship of additional historic properties. I was always quick with an emphatic “no” with the rejoinder that there are already too many house museums or that we did not have the staff or financial capacity to take care of another property. I had to walk that back in 2006 when Ed Sellers, CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, and Mayor Steve Benjamin asked Steve Morrison, president of the board of Historic Columbia, to consider taking over the stewardship of the former home of Modjeska Monteith Simkins. The site at 2025 Marion Street and Mrs. Simkins’ story were simply too important to refuse. For over a decade we have taken small steps towards protecting the property. In 2012, with support from the National Park Service (NPS) and Congressman James Clyburn, we completed a full rehabilitation of the rear dependency building. Four years later with additional NPS funding, Mrs. Simkins’ former residence received a full rehabilitation. In 2018 and 2019, we received grants from the African American Civil Rights program (also NPS), the State of South Carolina, and the Richland County Conservation Commission, as well as generous support from individual donors, to transform the site into a place that details and celebrates the life and work of Modjeska Monteith Simkins. In addition, the property includes two classroom/meeting spaces where visitors can delve more deeply into Mrs. Simkins’ work and be inspired to create community change. In this edition of Historically Speaking, you will hear from Historic Columbia’s director of research and exhibit curator Katharine Allen about the design for and content in “An Advocate of the People.” In addition to the financial support outlined, this project would not have been possible without her tireless research and unrelenting commitment to confronting difficult topics. Exhibit topics address Mrs. Simkins’ fight for equity for Black South Carolinians in health care, education, and pay. Exhibits point to media bias and violence against Black Americans. Stories track the grassroots movement that led to change. In moving through the exhibit, a visitor must confront the reality that the systems of white supremacy that Modjeska Monteith Simkins fought so tirelessly against continue to undergird and plague our state and country today. “An Advocate of the People” provides the context for the recent murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans, as well as the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. To that end, completion of this exhibit could not have come at a more relevant time.
Historically Speaking Winter 2021 | Volume 61 | Issue 02 President Gina Lesslie 1st Vice President Mark Jones 2nd Vice President Kim Jamieson Treasurer Jamie Keller Secretary Jeff Payne We share the complex history of Columbia and Richland County through historic preservation advocacy, innovative educational programs, and strategic partnerships.
In This Issue 3 Annual Fund Campaign 4-5 “An Advocate of the People” Exhibit 6-7 Upcoming Projects On the cover The RISE UP room in the new “An Advocate of the People” exhibit at the Modjeska Monteith Simkins House.
And yet, in the midst of a global pandemic, we cannot provide the community unfettered access to the site and the story. Our goals to offer insight and inspiration will be addressed virtually for now. I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities to engage in that sphere and to add a visit to the top of your list once we have in-person experiences again. Modjeska Monteith Simkins was a warrior, a bulldog, a stalwart champion for equity across a variety of sectors. She did not just think or talk or write, she acted, and she openly challenged others to do the same. We could all take a page from Mrs. Simkins’ playbook right now.
Robin Waites Executive Director
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HISTORIC COLUMBIA | NEWSLETTER
Visit us online: www.historiccolumbia.org
Annual Fund:
THE POWER OF VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING Historic Columbia’s education team presents a virtual tour of the HamptonPreston Mansion.
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hen Historic Columbia and Palladium made the decision to postpone Bluegrass Bidding & BBQ (originally scheduled for March 19, 2020), the team began looking at dates to reschedule the event for April. How naïve! Nearly a year later, we are still not ready to host events with hundreds of people on our grounds, but we have been able to adjust to continue delivering content that matters to our members as well as some new audiences. Despite the setbacks the last year held, the small (but mighty and nimble) team at Historic Columbia has found creative ways to march on. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the past year has been transitioning our in-person programming to a virtual platform. Staff worked tirelessly to identify the best formats and create and adapt content accordingly.
Upcoming Events SECOND SUNDAY STROLL: WAVERLY Time: 2 p.m. | Date: March 14 Waverly is recognized as one of Columbia’s first documented suburbs. The neighborhood evolved into a self-contained, self-sustaining Black community with many middle- and upper-class residents, among whom were leaders within spiritual, business, academic, and professional circles. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on 1300 Pine Street is a staple of the Waverly neighborhood.
VIRTUAL RESEARCH ROUNDTABLE: ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN HISTORIC HOUSES Time: Noon | Date: March 30 Learn about energy consumption in historic houses and simple steps to take to improve energy efficiency in them while caring for the historic qualities of the house.
With your support, HC purchased additional equipment and dedicated staff time to conceptualize and produce many high-quality experiences, including:
• Transitioning our traveling trunk and I had a virtual field trip with your education team for my Brooklyn eighth graders and wanted to express gratitude for your important work. It’s wonderful to be able to take advantage of your programming virtually.” - Melissa Bourgeois, assistant principal and English department head at Brooklyn’s German School
educational tour programs to virtual opportunities — even engaging a classroom in Brooklyn, New York.
• Bringing the annual Jubilee festival into
viewers’ homes through a partnership with WACH Fox that reached over 6,000 people — some of them new “event attendees” because of streaming options through WACH.com and broadcast TV.
• Holding virtual Behind-the-Scenes Tours for
members and the public — one member with limited mobility emailed about her delight at being able to participate in an event.
Though 2020 had its disruptions, we carried on with our mission to impact the Columbia community. This remains our goal for 2021 and beyond. With your support, Historic Columbia will be able to deliver additional relevant, timely, inclusive stories about our shared history. Visit historiccolumbia.org/annualfund to learn more or make a gift to support HC’s virtual programming efforts. Checks may also be mailed to 1601 Richland Street Columbia, SC 29201.
The Seibels House is accepted as Columbia’s oldest remaining building
MOVIES IN THE GARDEN SPONSORED BY THE ART OF REAL ESTATE: FIELD OF DREAMS Time: 6 p.m. | Date: April 9 Spring means the start of baseball, America’s favorite pastime. Join us in the garden for a screening of the modern classic Field of Dreams. Purchase your socially distanced pod and bring your crew and chairs or blankets to enjoy the film. Hot dogs and Cromer’s popcorn will be available for purchase. Field of Dreams is coming to the gardens of HamptonPreston Mansion. Visit historiccolumbia.org/events for registration information and to keep tabs on future events.
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MODJESKA MONTEITH SIMKINS
an ADVOCATE of the PEOPLE By Katharine Allen, Director of Research
RESIST examines the protracted legal and economic battle to end school desegregation. Historic Columbia collection
O Simkins objects to a rezoning plan that allowed middle-class white parents living near Lyon Street to move their children out of three predominantly Black schools at a Richland School District One meeting on March 9, 1976. One parent claimed that this change would allow them to be more active in school affairs, to which Simkins replied, “If they can do so much good in a middle-class school, they could do far more in a school needful of such contact.” Image courtesy The State Newspaper Photograph Archive, Richland Library
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HISTORIC COLUMBIA | NEWSLETTER
ver the last decade, Historic Columbia’s leadership and staff have taken bold steps to research and share new stories — ones that spotlight many unsung or previously maligned heroes while also refusing to gloss over people and systems that created and perpetrated injustice. The resulting reinterpretations at our sites often call into question the “truths” long held by many Americans: about the benevolence of enslavers, the incompetence of Black leadership, and the concept that Americans have always collectively sought to create a more equal and just nation. Although our work is always informed by scholarship and generally well-received, each new exhibit opening or tour brings with it some white visitors who want Historic Columbia to stop sharing “unpleasant” history, and most tellingly, who walk away upset that they were somehow tricked into attending “a Black history tour.” The common thread uniting these experiences, though, is not just apathy toward learning about people whose stories are historically underrepresented. It’s an unwillingness, often born of fear, to confront how white Americans have historically benefitted from, and thus continued to perpetuate, white supremacy. For doing so means questioning when, if ever, it ended.
As we began planning the permanent exhibit at the former home of Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the main curatorial team of myself, Graham Duncan, Kelly Kinard, and DJ Polite decided that it was no longer just forward-thinking, but necessary, for visitors to more fully understand how white supremacy has shaped the world we live in today. We also felt that it would be a disservice to visitors to believe that Simkins’ achievements were accomplished in a vacuum, nor were they, as with most actions by activists, celebrated by her white, and even some of her Black, contemporaries. For more than a year, we worked together to create an experience that invites visitors to touch, examine, listen, and reflect upon more than 100 archival documents created by Simkins and others working in this milieu. Ultimately, we decided to name each of the three dedicated exhibit spaces for a different action: ORGANIZE, RESIST, and RISE UP. As visitors enter the first room, ORGANIZE, they are immediately confronted with the words of Simkins and former governor Benjamin R. Tillman,
who both recognized the same truth: that the latter did not believe Black South Carolinians should have a voice in governance, and that he and other white men seized the legal power and made it so. This fact sets the proverbial stage for the space, where the breadth of source material allowed us to, for example, highlight how Simkins used her limited power to organize for access to health care and the ballot box, while ensuring that visitors could not look away from the inverse: white newspapers that chose language that justified lynchings and a white-only state legislature that organized explicitly against Black suffrage. The other two rooms replicate this experience in very different ways. RESIST explores the years-long fight to end “separate but equal” schools and the massive resistance to desegregation mounted by “average” white citizens that came after the landmark ruling Brown v. Board of Education. As she had in previous decades, Simkins found her own path forward, this time by leveraging media moments of her own creation. Among the artifacts on view is the Oct. 20, 1955, issue of Jet magazine, which features a call to action by Simkins that quickly raised thousands of dollars for Black school petition signers, and a mimeograph machine from the late 1940s, similar to the one Simkins used to mass produce a list of Orangeburg, South Carolina, stores to boycott in 1956 on account of their connection to the White Citizens Council. In the exhibit’s final space, RISE UP, we chose to take a more holistic approach to Simkins’ final years, when she advocated for numerous progressive policies through the Richland County Citizens’ Committee. Here, we connected her advisement of the progressive, and therefore controversial, biracial Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) to her support and advocacy of direct-action protests by young activists
Simkins created this list of Orangeburg businesses on her mimeograph machine in 1956. NAACP members and supporters placed copies on car windshields during South Carolina State University football games to spread awareness. Image courtesy of South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina, Columbia
a generation later, in the 1960s. To bring that connection into the present day, we commissioned filmmaker Mahkia Greene to create a short film juxtaposing the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre and the Black Lives Matter movement. Greene’s deft work ensures that as visitors turn to the exhibit’s final panel, A Matriarch’s Legacy, they carry new truths: that the passage of civil rights legislation in 1965 did not dramatically halt centuries of white supremacy, and that those who call into question this narrative do so at their own peril. As Simkins’ own legacy shows, to participate in a movement that challenges power often leads to initial condemnation. But as she espoused, early and often, participation is the point, and anyone can do it. They must simply decide to join the fight.
Simkins Exhibit Project Team CURATORIAL Katharine Allen Graham Duncan Kelly Kinard DJ Polite ACQUISITIONS & HOUSE PREPARATION Fielding Freed Kevin Jennings HEAR THEIR NAMES A memorial to lynching victims voiced by Xavier Blake Thaddeus Davis Alison Summey Tanya Wideman-Davis “RISE UP” A film directed by Mahkia Greene SCHOLAR REVIEW & ADVISEMENT Candace Cunningham, PhD Ramon Jackson, PhD Henrie Monteith Treadwell, PhD Adrienne Monteith Petty, PhD
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NEW PARTNERSHIP CONTINUES to GIVE VOICE to LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY
istoric Columbia is committed to telling the stories of all Columbians and linking today’s community at large with Columbia and Richland County’s diverse and complex past. In 2019, we partnered with the Queer Cola Oral History & Digital Archive Project and the Harriet Hancock LGBT Center to begin planning a comprehensive project documenting the often unseen and untold stories of LGBTQIA+ life in the Midlands. Now, with seed money from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, we are officially expanding our Connecting Communities through History (CCtH) platform to include the history of the LGBTQIA+ community. Of paramount importance is ensuring the preservation of the community’s memories, both collective and individual. To that end, we have partnered with two libraries at the University of South Carolina, the Office of Oral History and South Caroliniana Library, to record and transcribe 30 oral histories and to work with the Office of Oral History to create further access to oral histories recorded more than a decade ago. In addition, we will fully process and make accessible the 70+ box “South Carolina gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer collection” held by South Caroliniana Library, and create a digital collection comprised of key documents and ephemera contained within. Through this new initiative we will ensure that LGBTQIA+ stories are no
Organizers announce South Carolina’s first Gay and Lesbian Pride March. It was held on June 23, 1990, in Columbia. Image courtesy of The State Newspaper Photograph Archive, Richland Library
longer silenced, and instead will be uplifted and woven into the fabric of Columbia’s broader history. Interested in getting involved? Contact Robin Waites at rwaites@historiccolumbia.org.
CELEBRATING the STRENGTH of COLUMBIA’S WOMEN
WREN executive director Ann Warner speaks at She Did Day in August 2020.
Major monument to recognize Columbia women’s achievements
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his spring, International Women’s Day, Columbia City of Women will unveil “The Architecture of Strength,” a monument by artist Deedee Morrison that will stand at the northwest corner of Main and Gervais streets, the intersection of government and commerce facing the South Carolina State House. In its placement, this monument will confront South Carolina’s past and its white, maledominated status quo. Of the 5,575 public art pieces representing historical figures in the United States, only 559 portray women, a mere 10% of all statues, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. On the grounds of the State House stand more than 30 monuments erected to recognize men, but not women in any meaningful way.
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One of the essential tenets of the Columbia City of Women project is that we believe in the importance of moving through a city where women and their achievements are celebrated, the adversity they faced is recognized, and their stories inspire and connect us. We hope each community member will consider what this piece of art means to them and see their strength, and the strength of women they know, in it. An augmented reality project will accompany the public art to help those at the monument or at home to engage with the statue and the women it honors. Stay tuned to ColumbiaCityofWomen.com and @ColumbiaCityofWomen on Facebook and Instagram for more news on the monument, augmented reality app, and the City of Women honorees.
HISTORIC COLUMBIA | NEWSLETTER
Do you know or remember a remarkable woman whose contributions to Columbia deserve to be honored? Columbia City of Women is currently seeking nominations for its 2021-22 honorees through March 15. When we share stories about great Columbia women from the past and the present, we celebrate (often underrecognized) achievements, make heroes relatable, and inspire one another. Visit ColumbiaCityofWomen.com for more information and to submit your nomination.
Historically COMPLEX New podcast series guides visitors around the South Carolina State House grounds George Washington Monument
who made it – or fundraised for it – and what they believe it meant. Episode 1 (eight minutes in length) is an overview of the State House grounds. What exactly is that space? What was it made for? Who was it made for? Brandt begins her examination of the story behind each monument. Episode 2 (nine minutes) begins with the origins of the State House in the 18th century and before the Civil War, spotlighting the first statue on the grounds — the George Washington Monument — and the ways in which South Carolina politicians used the State House building to argue for the righteousness of slavery. Episode 3 (11 minutes) continues with the construction of the State House into the 1850s, contextualizing the building — and the monuments on its north side — with the politics of the era. Episode 4 (14 minutes) focuses on a postCivil War South Carolina, which included the Monument to the Confederate Dead and the construction of white supremacy narratives as evidenced by the Benjamin Ryan Tillman Monument.
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hat does a monument mean to you? Historic Columbia’s web-based monuments tour, launched in 2019, explores the layered and complex history of monuments on the South Carolina State House grounds, including what the monuments meant to those who selected, commissioned, or funded the statues and fixtures you see on the grounds today. Now, part of that history is featured in a four-part podcast series titled “Historically Complex,” available on your favorite podcast service. Turn the series on in the car, house, or, ideally, while walking the State House grounds. Dr. Lydia Brandt, a University of South Carolina associate professor of architectural history and art history, is the experienced voice and guide of the podcast. A longtime ally to HC through her extensive research on monuments, Brandt is once again presenting on the subject. In this podcast, broken up over four short episodes, she focuses on positioning each monument in its historical moment to help listeners understand what motivated the people
This podcast series is another tool in Historic Columbia’s efforts to drive conversations about the grounds and how historic places are interpreted in the community. Since Columbia’s founding in 1786, the grounds of the South Carolina State House have grown from a four-acre site bounded by Richardson (Main), Gervais, Assembly, and Senate streets into a 22-acre complex featuring seven buildings and more than 30 monuments. South Carolinians have constructed, altered and reconsidered this space for more than 230 years — and continue to do so today.
Seibels House Stabilization You often hear the phrase, “We could not have accomplished this without your support!” In the case of Historic Columbia’s 2019-20 Annual Fund, this figurative saying has had a very literal, and tangible, meaning. Support from donors (which helped leverage further funding through grants) empowered HC to better physically support the Seibels House through desperately needed foundation work. Thanks to your help, the circa-1795 building, believed to be the oldest remaining structure in Columbia, began undergoing stabilization work in December. As Part I of a multi-phased project, this aspect has thus far included:
• Consultation with a preservation
engineer, which produced construction drawings • Selection of Hood Construction as the general contractor • Fabrication of pressure-treated foundations • Installation of 23 screw jacks • Minor relocation of HVAC duct work to accommodate jack placement • Moderate sistering of floor joists to bolster existing supports • Minor consolidation of decayed, historic floor joists Pending greater funding in the coming years, HC will replace this interimmeasure support system with new masonry piers and repoint the basement walls that still suffer from rising damp, loss of mortar, and spalling.
The podcast was made possible through a South Carolina Humanities grant, which also helped fund the original web-based and guided tours. Download or stream “Historically Complex” episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify or stream on Historic Columbia’s website. For more on the podcast, visit historiccolumbia.org/podcast. To take the full monuments tour, visit historiccolumbia.org/monuments. For more on Dr. Brandt’s research into monuments, pre-order her book The South Carolina State House Grounds at USCPress.com (releasing this spring!).
HC’s Facilities Coordinator Kevin Jennings (left) and Zack Jones, project supervisor with Hood Construction (right), inspect work performed thus far on one of the capital city’s most storied properties. WINTER 2021
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1601 Richland Street
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Columbia, SC 29201
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www.historiccolumbia.org
NONPROFIT ORG USPOSTAGE PAID COLUMBIA, SC PERMIT #1000
Collections SPOTLIGHT
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efore the Internet, machines like this Ditto duplicator enabled grassroots organizations and their members, like Modjeska Monteith Simkins, to mass produce their messages quickly. While we do not know the exact model, prior to 1941, Simkins purchased a duplicating machine like this one. Flyers, leaflets, and newsletters printed at Simkins’ home office proved effective means of communicating her message to a wide audience.
Manufactured by the Ditto Corporation of Chicago, Illinois, this machine is a predecessor of the modern photo copier. Historic Columbia collection, HCF 2020.3.1
