♪ (opening music) ♪ <Gavin Jackson> Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

February is Black History month and after the tumultuous events of 2020, there is much to talk about.

We speak with Merrell Johnson of Empower SC about the future of the social justice movement.

First, USC professor and Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research, Dr Bobby Donaldson tells us about our past.

Professor Donaldson, thanks for joining me.

<Dr Bobby Donaldson> Glad to be with you.

<Gavin> So, I want to start by talking about the history of Black History month which goes back to 1976 when President Gerald Ford urged Americans to "...seize the opportunity to honor "the too often neglected accomplishments of Black "Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."

How big of a need is there still for people to understand Black History now more than ever?

<Dr.

Donaldson> I think it's an ongoing need.

What happened in 1976 was when Black History month was declared a month long observation.

You should note that there was a longer struggle to make this inclusion impactful.

One of the early organizers of what is now Black History Month was a phenomenal scholar named Dr Carter G. Woodson who created what was called Negro History week in 1926.

And what Dr. Woodson understood was that there was a real vacuum, a real void about the important role of African Americans in shaping and building the nation.

And so he developed his own curriculum.

He traveled around the country and went to schools and churches and Masonic lodges and began to teach a history that was often not discussed, not underscored in schools.

And ironically, one of the people who helped him in that endeavor was a South Carolinian.

Her name was Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.

Dr. Woodson's organization was called the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Dr. Bethune, a native of Sumter County, was the president of that organization in 1937.

And she said we should teach history at every grade level from kindergarten, to elementary, to high school, to college, to the grave.

We should do so at whatever cost.

It is our obligation and our sacred duty.

So that motivation, that inspiration has carried Black History month to where we are now.

What Dr. Woodson argued that he saw that there should not simply be a Black History month, that he envisioned a time when it may not be needed.

When there would be indeed, inclusive history every day, all year.

Part of the work we do with the University of South Carolina in the History Department of African American Studies and the Center for Civil Rights History Research is to give teachers the tools they need to develop an inclusive curriculum that they can teach every day, all year.

<Gavin> That answers my question a little bit there when we hear from some people who say why do we still need a month dedicated to Black History.

I guess the answer there is it should be integrated more into the history books that we teach our children and up through adulthood.

>> I agree.

I'm not calling for an end of African American History month.

I'm saying, it becomes a launching pad that we can do a deep dive into important aspects of our nation and our state's history that's often overlooked.

This is that window of time when you can get a sense of the lay of the land and figure out what we do in March, April, May and June through the rest of the year, because there is such a rich and extraordinary history of our state that still needs to be fully documented and fully told to all citizens.

<Gavin> It was interesting because I was doing research on Black History month and my alma mater Kent State, I didn't know this until I read about it was one of the first places to start celebrating Black History month in 1970, which was really fascinating there.

because it started there and six years later became a national thing.

I want to talk about integrating more history into history books, professor.

It seems, we kind of go from you know, okay here's Harriet Tubman, here's Frederick Douglass fast forward to Rosa Parks.

Are history books getting any better when we look at like elementary high school teaching.

Obviously, when you get to college level things can get a little more nuanced, you can learn a lot more.

Are we seeing better integration into history into how African Americans helped shape this country today?

<Dr.

Donaldson> The answer is yes.

I think there has been an active and an intentional effort to revise a lot of the longstanding history to traditional things that have been largely incorrect or have been misconstrued.

So when students come to the university and they take my Intro U.S. history course, They become a little more informed, not always excited about history by the way but at least more informed about history and I do believe that there's still a real need to tell a more conclusive and comprehensive story particularly as it relates to South Carolina.

So you just mentioned Frederick Douglas and most visitors could tell us one or two things about Frederick Douglass.

But few can probably tell you about one of his colleagues, whose name was Joseph H. Rainey.

Well, who is Joseph H. Rainey?

Joseph H. Rainey was the first African American elected to the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina.

He was from Georgetown.

Only now are we beginning to understand the extraordinary career that he led in the Reconstruction Era.

You mentioned Harriet Tubman.

Some may not know about a woman named Celia Dial Saxon, a local teacher in Columbia who taught for 55 years, who advocated for the teaching of Black History in the 1920s and 1930s.

So, the more we dig the more we know.

The more we dig the more we realize what we do not know So that's again why I think having months like this and the work that is happening across the country is so important.

<Gavin> Yeah, always discovering new things and you wrote about Congressman Rainey in the Smithsonian Magazine recently, as well.

I kind of want to elaborate on that and talk about Reconstruction.

I've been watching so many great documentaries on Reconstruction and I just feel like it's just been a void that I didn't know much about.

We always talk about first Black person for such office since Reconstruction, but I think we never really talk about Reconstruction.

Is there a just a greater need for that?

Why do you think that is?

And where do you feel like that falls into the history books essentially?

<Dr.

Donaldson> An important component of Reconstruction is the challenge, the longstanding notion that this was some sort of abysmal failure.

That's been the biggest takeaway of Reconstruction for the longest of times that it was a kind of a corrupted moment in American history as though it was the only moment where there was corruption.

Part of the important story about Joseph Rainey was he was a gifted leader who was well equipped, well able to govern, was viewed as one of the smartest men serving in Congress, Black or White.

Yet he's been relegated to a footnote in history.

I actually describe him as one of the founding fathers.

He helped to rebuild South Carolina in the aftermath of Reconstruction.

He helped to put forward a very progressive state constitution in 1895.

It's ironic, Gavin that here in South Carolina, there is a monument on the grounds of the state house of South Carolina to Benjamin Tillman, who challenged Reconstruction.

There is no monument.

There is no statue honoring Robert Smalls or honoring Joseph Rainey and yet again I think these conversations will remind us of the need to delve more deeply into the history so that we can have a more complete story and so now with the Joseph Rainey history coming to light, there are now efforts to rename a Georgetown County post office after Joseph Rainey.

There is now a room in the United States Congress named for Joseph Rainey.

Here was a man elected 150 years ago who is only now getting the type of credit and attention that he deserves.

<Gavin> Like you said, not the only one there.

Since you brought up monuments, I want to talk about the role of Confederate monuments.

It's been a very hot topic.

I was in Marion Square when John C. Calhoun's statue was removed last year.

Tell me about this debate.

You don't have to tell me We don't have to get too political.

I just want to know what you'd say to people when they say are we are erasing history when taking down monuments.

The history still stands.

A monument is just a public monument to that history, but elaborate on it for folks who say you're whitewashing history.

You're getting rid of these things from history.

What's your response to that?

<Dr.

Donaldson> First, I say I'm a professor of history.

I've said this a great deal.

My roots are in South Carolina.

My great, great grandfather's name was Alex Williams.

Alex Williams served from 1861 to 1865 in the Confederate army.

He was a Negro.

He was a servant to a White man from Aiken County.

He received a pension for being in the Confederate army.

And so I come at this very biased, but I believe that each monument should be should be scrutinized and each monument should be scrutinized to the degree to which they tell a complete history.

I've kind of evolved over time.

Initially, I was on the mind that you strike a balance but I do believe some monuments deserve to be removed and put elsewhere.

They do not deserve to be on the grounds of the state house.

But if we do come to a compromise that they deserve, they will stay there, then tell the whole history.

A classic example is the name I just mentioned a moment ago, Benjamin Tillman.

When you read the monument, if you are 5th grader coming in from Clarendon County or coming in from Lamar, South Carolina, you would read that statue, you would get a very skewed history of Ben Tillman.

You don't so see anything that says that he was one of the leaders of the Hamburg massacre, a terrorist overtaking of a Black community.

You don't read anything about the fact that he championed lynching.

That he championed disenfranchisement.

Again, if you want a statue to stand, tell a complete history of the individual.

<Gavin> So is that something - <Dr.

Donaldson> If you don't want that complete history to be told, remove it.

<Gavin> So is that as simple as maybe putting informational panels near a monument of the like, explaining more fully to describe who this person really is and their whole history?

<Dr.

Donaldson> I believe so.

I believe that's needed if the monument is taken down or not.

We have a Heritage Act in place right now.

It's a very difficult law to undo that was done intentionally.

And there is of course efforts to challenge the legalities of the act, Even if the act is in place, I still believe as an educator as a historian, we have an obligation to review each of these to make sure we're telling the truth about a moment, about a place, or about an individual.

If we're not doing that, we're giving a skewed history to our students who see the state house grounds not simply as a place of governance, but it's a classroom.

If it's a classroom, we should be telling an honest history.

<Gavin> Several depictions of John C. Calhoun in the statehouse, as well.

Just to talk about the events of last year further, how did you put the events we saw last year as a result of the death of George Floyd and just a multitude of other incidents happening, how do you put this into context for your students?

How do you put it in context for people who saw it one way or they saw it as riots not as protesting, even though they were majority peaceful protests, how does that mesh with our history and how we've gotten to this point?

It seems like sometimes progress unfortunately for Black Americans is either coming at the end of a gun or at the knee on the back of someone's neck or a baton.

How does this mesh in this moment with what we've seen in the past?

<Dr.

Donaldson> I remind my students and even my own children who are 14 and 10 is that what we are witnessing and seeing not a new phenomenon.

It's of a long trajectory of push and change and struggle and push back and resistance, but the brutal murder of George Floyd are described as an Emmett Till moment.

Who isn't Emmett Till?

A 14 year old boy tragically killed in Money, Mississippi in 1955.

It would have been an ordinary death just like Floyd, if not his mother decided to show his brutally beaten body to photographers.

It was transmitted around the world.

And for the first time, many people living in small towns around the country, saw the impact, the literal impact, the brutality of segregation, of White supremacy and injustice.

It was an awakening moment that this is a nation that does not jive with our professed ideals of democracy and justice, similarly with George Floyd.

Here, this young man, life is taken away on camera.

And in a moment, we we're all sheltering in place, we see it.

And we see it and see it and see it again.

For a lot of people, it was an awakening.

There had been protests and stories about police brutality but now average Americans are seeing it for themselves.

It was an awakening.

I think it galvanized people.

It mobilized people and people took to the streets to protest.

Ironically, there were a lot of protests on the grounds of the State House of South Carolina.

Some of them, I attended.

I was there both as a champion and also as a witness as kind of an anthropologists because part of what I'm reminded about is just that legal ability to gather on the grounds of the state house is endorsed and affirmed by events that happened in South Carolina.

So, for example 60 years ago, March 2nd, 1961, 300 African Americans and supporters are on the grounds of the State House of South Carolina.

They're marching around initially in silence, then they start singing and dancing freedom songs.

They're all arrested for disturbing the peace.

They're tried and they're convicted 190 of them.

And of those 190, one includes James Clyburn.

The arrest of those people leads to a famous Supreme Court case called Edwards versus South Carolina.

The United States Supreme Court in an 8 to 1 decision said it was unconstitutional for those persons to be arrested on public grounds when they're engaged in peaceful protests.

Well, that landmark decision, is a law, is a ruling that enables much of what we see now.

And yet people very few realize that what we enjoy today is built on the historical struggles of people who took to the streets who demanded justice 60 years ago.

<Gavin> So much we still need to learn.

I wish we had more time to keep talking I thank you for joining us.

That's Professor Bobby Donaldson He's a professor of history and the Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina.

Thank you, Sir <Dr.

Donaldson> Thank you.

<Gavin> Joining me now to discuss the social justice movement in South Carolina is Merrell Johnson.

He's the Chief Strategy Officer at Empower SC.

Merrell, thanks for joining us.

<Merrell Johnson> Hi, thank you for having me.

<Gavin> So, tell us an overview before we get into more details about the movement in South Carolina.

Give us an overview about Empower SC and what you hope to accomplish in the state.

<Merrell> Well, that's a great question.

We you know last year, we all saw what happened with the George Floyd situation.

It was what I would describe as a traumatic event and out of that came a lot of protests, a lot of strife, a lot of trauma and we all put our heads together as a collective in South Carolina to really work to make change, not only on a protest level but also on a policy level and we had a great group of people come together and work really hard to create a new policy and draft proposals and just really come up with some other options that we want to present to different municipalities and state legislatures to get them to think a little bit outside the box about how they do things.

And if that's going to be continue to be our focus this year, that's going to be what we're going to push for.

It's not dead.

It's still very much alive and it went well and we're going to continue that.

This year we actually had our strategy meeting, last week and we said there were a couple things that we wanted to continue to focus on.

Police brutality of course was front and center.

Healthcare and Human Services is also another one of those areas that were focusing on and also any other area that we identified that specifically targets individuals who are Black or Indigenous people of color and are women who are under served and might be some type of equity or justice so to speak.

So that would look like things...does it.

That would also be something to the effect of incarceration rates recitizenism after incarceration for Black males who are coming out of prison.

And the work is just a lot and it's very hard and we're just thriving and keeping our head to the ground.

>> Merrell kind of tell me about how the need for this organization right b ecause we did see such an outpouring.

It was such a tumultuous year, everyone experienced it last year and there was just such energy and momentum.

We saw it here especially in Columbia across the state.

Was there just not a group really steering all that energy and momentum that you guys saw a need to do so, I mean we I felt like there's a lot of different organizations going on, but it seems like you guys are now still trying to make sure that something comes out of that movement.

>> Well, Gavin, there have been groups doing this for a long time.

Empower SC, there's nothing new under the sun and I think a lot of people might have just noticed it for the first time.

They didn't realize how many actual organizations or groups or collectives were doing something, but we all saw and made very clear, there were multiple organizations putting their heads together to come together.

This is not something that any of us can do in a silo.

I'm very thankful for that.

It would be very hard to be able to carry as much weight as we're carrying without having multiple parties involved.

<Gavin> When we look at the issues you're talking about here, what specific issues are you all pushing for this year?

We've seen movement in the State House on some legislative items, but what specifically are you guys hoping to accomplish at the legislative level?

<Merrell> Well, we're still going to be pushing our policy to have our legislature look and our city council and county representatives look at re-budgeting and refunding is the term we're using.

We don't use the term defund, because that's not an accurate representation.

We have never used the term defund, but we'll be talking with them and working with them to see how we can assist in reallocating funds in areas that might be more beneficial in the communities they serve.

<Gavin> Are you worried about that?

Looking at the protest movement, looking at how the messaging got a little difficult, it got a little convoluted out when we were talking about defunding police.

And what what really means versus actually trying to make policing better in communities.

What's your response to folks who kind of feel like the movement got twisted around or that it focused on the wrong things instead of the actual need to accomplish some equity?

>> I try not to get involved, I know we had some politicians get very loud about things.

We used the wrong term.

I don't believe that's true because I'm a fact based and data based person and I don't see the data to back up that claim.

I do know that it can be confusing if you don't use the right term.

I am a person who works in communications I understand what you say matters.

I think that's a valuable thing we need to put our energy into, which is why again we've never used the term defund.

Refund is what we always wanted to say on purpose.

So, when we do hear people say that, we'll give them a gentle nudge in the right direction and just correct them and let him know what it's really about.

<Gavin> We were talking about movement at the legislative level we did see House Speaker Jay Lucas create the House Equitable Justice System and Law Enforcement Reform Committee, last July as a result of everything happening in the country and in our state.

We did see legislation from that committee, introduced the first day of the legislative session in January.

We're talking about bills that deal with asset forfeiture, hate crime penalty enhancements and also sentencing reforms.

Where does Empower SC fit into moving forward with these bills?

Do you all support these bills?

What you want to see happen with these?

<Merrell> There's some that we are very happy to get behind and support and applaud and there are some that definitely need a bit more tweaking and a bit more oil before we can get behind that and make that something we're happy to say that our movement probably, the social pressure, has pushed our legislature to do.

One area I think we really need to focus on again is just making sure all of our police across the entire state are singing from the same sheet of music.

We don't have that right now.

So, what you see is policing in Columbia look completely different than policing in Charleston.

That's very important for us in order to make sure that you know when things hit publicly there is no confusion about what happened or why people are being treated differently.

<Gavin> When we look at policing in the big cities versus maybe the rural areas in our state, what kind of differences do you see there?

Do we need more reforms in the bigger cities or are there reforms more needed in the smaller areas, the smaller departments?

What's the take on that from Empower SC?

>> From our vantage point, we know that based on rural communities their funding is completely different than bigger cities.

So, we understand that needs to be worked on, but to answer your question directly, who needs it more?

It's kind of like saying, do you want the top half of the baby or the bottom half of the baby.

We're not trying to split that at all.

Together we want to work make sure that everyone gets everything that they need and so that the community can benefit the best.

<Gavin> Obviously, this is the first Black History month since last year, when we did see so much upheaval of both good and bad of course, but how do you feel things are different right now?

How do you see things moving forward?

Do you feel like this movement is still energized at this point?

>> Absolutely, we get a lot of messages, a lot of questions daily asking about different aspects of our movement.

We have questions asking if we can hop in and help promote something and really get behind it a specific individual.

I mean, we know that the world has changed forever I mean we just cannot deny that fact and you have some who would say that our community is now more divided than ever and you have some say our community is more united than ever.

Over the next couple of years, we're going to be looking at really trying to make unity happen.

We also want it to be done in a fair and equitable way.

<Gavin> Talking about equity and I want to talk about that.

It seems like it's almost becoming weaponized right now, politically.

Some people are saying equity is some sort of way of discriminating against one population versus another even though these populations have been historically discriminated against leading to inequity.

What is your approach to how we can be more equitable as a society and maybe address those who see it as discriminatory practice?

<Merrell> I think in order to address equity, we have to address the true definition of why equity is something that we need and that is a very difficult conversation to have for a lot of people.

And it is a very uncomfortable conversation people have.

So, with that being said I will repeat what I've been saying from the very beginning.

We need to start by listening.

Listen to a different group and get a diverse surrounding around personally and on a professional level so that you can just absorb like a sponge everything that's being said and everything that's being done.

You can hear it.

You can see it.

You can feel it.

Then, only once you start from the very ground and clear your mind that you can have a very open perspective on the world around you, the environment around you, that you can move forward.

Then Merrell, just with a minute left here, I want to ask you about what you're doing in order to listen to folks.

We don't want to have another tragedy to inspire people to do something.

You're saying the movement's still alive and very well.

I want to know how people can get involved, what they should be doing to keep that movement alive, how they can address these issues on their own.

<Merrell> Well, on a personal level, we are saying the same thing as always, have this conversation in spaces where minority is not there and push back against that.

That's very, very important you have no idea how heavy word of mouth is until you actually have these conversations with your family members and your friends.

Another thing we're saying is if you want, join a movement.

Feel free.

It doesn't take very much energy to do.

Just hop in and say what can I do to participate and be part of the change.

Or can you help me find some resources where I may not be very knowledgeable in so that I can become better?

It's a easy conversation to have and it can be a very tough pill to swallow and realize just how small your world is.

<Gavin> Well, Merrell Johnson the Chief Strategy Officer at Empower SC.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

<Merrell> Thank you so much.

For the latest South Carolina news, check out the South Carolina Lede.

It's a podcast I host multiple times a week, you can find it anywhere you find podcasts, including South Carolina public radio.org.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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