The social, economic, and political landscape of this country were forever changed by the Civil Rights movement. The men we have come to know and appreciated were not alone; women played a big part in this great change. In review of recent events, this historical presentation revisits the significant role Ella Baker and other women … Read more
Kate has always been interested in political commentary. She was a staff editorial cartoonist and nationally syndicated for several years, and her cartoons appeared both locally and nationally. She is now doing cartoons for a weekly paper, the Greenville Journal, and her latest book is a coloring book, 2016 Race for the White House: A Grownup Coloring … Read more
This program will feature songs of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States discussed in context of historical events. Lyrics are provided. Dive into an investigation of the folk roots of early Civil Rights songs and the influence of soul/R&B on memorable Civil Rights anthems, from Guthrie to Franklin to Cooke, as well … Read more
This program will engage participants in a discussion of literature and music from the Chicano and Puerto Rican American population during the Viet Nam War. Music and lyrics are provided. The presentation includes special emphasis on Roy Brown’s 1970 album Yo Protesto and the continued complicated relations between the US & Puerto Rico.
This program offers a brief history of anti-war music in the United States up to the Viet Nam War and further discussion of specific anti-war songs (for example: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by The Animals, 1965, is the most remembered song by VN War Veterans) and their historical context. More recent anti-war … Read more
This program gives an overview of different genres of music of the war, with lyrics displayed while songs play. “Top 40” hits are interspersed with “deep cuts” from the Viet Nam War era, and the discussion includes global cultural, social, and historical contexts for the songs presented.
An in-depth look at the relationship between political structures and musical movements. Depending upon the interests of the group, this talk can include Beethoven’s Musical Treatment from Napoleon to Hitler, Baroque Music and Absolutism, Mozart and the Enlightenment, Jim Crow and Jazz, or many others.
As we are bombarded daily by ever-coarsening political discourse, it is tempting to long for a gentler, perhaps more civil, age. Imagining a past similar to the worlds of Jane Austen novels, we sometimes project our wishes onto the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This talk will suggest that what we are experiencing in America today … Read more
South Carolina’s 1895 constitution disenfranchised Black citizens. The constitution, which was not submitted to a popular vote, also said, “Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race.” That constitution … Read more
In December 1967, five Black women left work at Medical College Hospital in Charleston when ordered to violate their LPN licensing limits. Despite the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the hospital segregated patients, restrooms, and cafeterias, and did not provide Black doctors or training programs for Black workers. With the help of the Southern Christian Leadership … Read more
James T. McCain, fired as a school principal for NAACP membership, became the first Black and Southern field secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). CORE’s founders had accepted imprisonment rather than fight in World War II and Korea; they emulated Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent methods of opposing injustice. The training CORE’s McCain provided South … Read more
A fourteen-year-old fell far from a pecan tree; the family accepted the doctor’s diagnosis: Cecil Augustus Ivory would never again walk. After six months in bed, Ivory employed two cane chairs as crutches and walked again. His drive and determination led to a football scholarship, a divinity degree, a church in Rock Hill, South Carolina, … Read more
In 1946, Levi and Hammett Pearson asked for a public school bus for Black children who walked nine miles to school in Summerton, SC. The request could have gotten the Pearsons killed and did lead to gunfire into their homes, debts called in, farm seed and equipment refused. But the brothers wanted a better life … Read more
More than 100 parents and children signed Clarendon County petitions that led to Brown v. Board of Education and the end of legal segregation of public schools. The first petition, asking that “separate but equal” actually be equal, led to death threats, a murder, arson, and loss of jobs and homes. But the petitioners persisted. … Read more
The day after the Ku Klux Klan chained Rev. James Myles Hinton Sr. to a tree and beat him, Hinton returned to work. He said he would rather die fighting than live on his knees. The president of the SC Conference of Branches of the NAACP from 1941-1958, Hinton worked with Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP … Read more
