Champions of Civil and Human Rights in South Carolina is a five-volume anthology spanning the decades from 1930 to 1980 with oral history interviews of key activists and leaders of the civil rights movement in South Carolina. SC Humanities supported this project with a grant for transcription.
Editor Marvin Ira Lare introduces more than one hundred civil rights leaders from South Carolina who tell their own stories in their own words to reveal and chronicle a massive revolution in American society in a deeply personal and gripping way.
This collection features oral histories from famous leaders such as U.S. Congressman James E. Clyburn, Septima Poinsette Clark, and I. DeQuincey Newman, as well as small-town citizens, pastors, and students, all sharing their experiences, motivations, hopes and fears, and how they see the struggle today.
The Department of Oral History, University Libraries, University of South Carolina has worked to migrate these envisioned book volumes into an online oral history exhibit, giving access to both the transcripts and sound recordings of the interviews.
Volume 1: Before the Movement Began, 1930-1954
Volume 2: Dawn of the Movement Era, 1955-1967
Volume 3: The Movement Era, 1955-1967
Volume 4: Birthing a New Day, 1968-1980
Volume 5: Lessons Learned and Promises to Keep, 1968-1980
This ambitious project of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Public Service and Policy Research was funded in part by the South Carolina Bar Foundation, the Southern Bell Corporation, and South Carolina Humanities.
The mission of SC Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. Established in 1973, this 501(c) 3 organization is governed by a volunteer 21-member Board of Directors comprised of community leaders from throughout the state. It presents and/or supports literary initiatives, lectures, exhibits, festivals, publications, oral history projects, videos and other humanities-based experiences that directly or indirectly reach more than 250,000 citizens annually.
