What was the secret plan that sparked a civil rights movement?

As part of the Modjeska Simkins School’s Sunday Social series, on April 28, 4-6pm at 2015 Marion St. Post & Courier columnist Brian Hicks will talk about his latest book, In Darkest South Carolina: J. Waties Waring and the secret plan that sparked a civil rights movement. His remarks will be followed by a group discussion led by Robert Greene, a Claflin history professor and guest lecturer at the Modjeska School.

The talk is free and open to all. Questions? Call 803-808-3384.

Four years before the landmark US Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, a federal judge in Charleston hatched his secret plan to end segregation in America.

Julius Waties Waring was perhaps the most unlikely civil rights hero in history. An eighth-generation Charlestonian, the son of a Confederate veteran and scion of a family of slave owners, Waring was appointed to the federal bench in the early days of World War II. He had coveted a judgeship his entire life, but circumstance and fate denied him until he was 61. When Waring finally donned the robe, it changed everything he’d ever known.

Faced with a growing demand for equal rights from black South Carolinians, and a determined and savvy NAACP attorney named Thurgood Marshall, Waring did what he thought was right: He followed the law, and the United States Constitution. Shaken by the bigotry and backlash that followed each of his rulings, Waring soon had a moral awakening – and decided to set the world right.

In the midst of rebelling against home and heritage, Waring crossed two lines from which there was no return: He abandoned his wife of 30 years and married an intellectual Yankee divorcee, which led to his ostracism from Charleston’s South of Broad society. Then Waring ordered the South Carolina Democratic Party to allow African Americans to vote in its primary – and the entire state damned his soul.

The Ku Klux Klan bombarded Waring with threatening calls, letters and burning crosses. The Charleston newspapers declared war. Demagogue politicians promised to run the judge from the bench – and out of South Carolina. Waring’s ruling against discrimination in voting booths even inspired Gov. Strom Thurmond’s infamous Dixiecrat presidential bid. But the judge wasn’t finished. By 1950, Waring believed he’d found a way to destroy all Jim Crow laws, so long as he could carry out his scheme before he was impeached … or killed.

This is the story of 20th century America, where Harry Truman and Strom Thurmond carried on battles begun by Teddy Roosevelt and Ben Tillman, where a Clarendon County preacher risked his life for equality, and a gentle Charleston teacher showed thousands how to claim their civil rights. This is the story of Judge J. Waties Waring, his incredible life and the country he changed. And it all began in darkest South Carolina.

•  •  •

From In Darkest South Carolina: An early winter storm devastated Charleston the last weekend of November. Tat Saturday, three people died of exposure as temperatures dropped into the teens — colder than it had been along the South Carolina coast in seven years. Pipes burst across the city, leaving many residents without water. One woman was found frozen on the waterfront near the Battery and the Fort Sumter Hotel, where the Southern governors were holding their annual convention.

The next day, 125 people set out from Morris Street Baptist church for a nearly two-mile march to 61 Meeting Street. The walk was not unbearable; the temperature ultimately rose to 48, 10 degrees above the forecast. These people — 100 of them black, 25 white — were led by Modejska Simkins, the Columbia activist and state chairman for the Southern Conference Education Fund. The “pilgrimage” had been her idea to honor Judge Waring and his wife for their dedication to civil rights.

The group walked uncluttered sidewalks along King and Meeting streets for nearly an hour before arriving at the judge’s home. There they found an atypical South of Broad scene: a government car parked beneath a palm tree. An armed marshal casually leaning against the house. It looked like a fortified compound in enemy territory. But the Warings stood outside, near their front door, shaking hands with every one of the pilgrims.

It was a simple ceremony. With the group fanning out on the sidewalk and spilling into Meeting Street, Simkins read a citation that praised Waring for his “wise, just and courageous” work, his understanding of democracy, as well as his dedication to protecting the rights of suffrage and the freedom and equality of men.

“Yet it has been seen that many another, in your place, has found it possible, before obdurate prejudices and customs, to avoid the guidance of the noblest guarantees of our constitution,” Simkins said. “Your own faithfulness in this field, despite environmental discouragements others have bowed to, has been exemplary and heartwarming.”

The judge was moved by this tribute more than any other he’d ever received.

•  •  •

Hicks’ journalism has appeared in national and international publications since 1986, and he has written about Southern history and politics for 30 years. He has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, National Public Radio, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel and in Smithsonian Magazine. His column has won three Green Eyeshade Awards for best commentary in the Southeast from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Hicks is a former South Carolina Press Association Journalist of the Year.

His previous books include Ghost Ship, When the Dancing Stopped and The Mayor. His Toward the Setting Sun and Raising the Hunley were selections of the Book-of-the-Mouth Club, as well as the History and Military Book Clubs.

A native of Tennessee, Hicks has lived in Charleston for more than 20 years.?

Bobby Donaldson: “The legacy of Modjeska Simkins is not dead”

In 1938, just days before her 39th birthday, Modjeska Simkins drew up plans for her own funeral. “For reasons known only to myself,” she wrote directives for a simple ceremony to be carried out “in the event of my demise.” It included a list of hymns and readings, and a note to the mortician to refuse floral arrangements.

We can only guess what prompted her to write the document, which USC history professor Dr. Bobby Donaldson shared at this year’s Modjeska party, an annual birthday celebration the SC Progressive Network holds at her Columbia home. He said it appears nobody ever read it, perhaps because it was buried in the piles of books and papers that filled her home.

This much is clear: there was much ado and flowers aplenty when Modjeska died in 1992. And for good reason.

Dr. Bobby Donaldson speaks from the back porch of the Modjeska Simkins House.

“Fortunately for us,” Donaldson said, “Modjeska did not die in 1938. If she had, we would not have a SC NAACP, established in 1939. If she had died, we would not have had an extraordinary letter written in 1944 to the governor, Olin D. Johnston, demanding he debate the merits of white supremacy. If she had died in 1938, we would not have the Modjeska in 1946 who helps organize one of the most extraordinary youth gatherings in the history of this country.”

He ticked off a list of things that would not exist were not for Modjeska, including the Harbison Training Institute that taught progressive activists in the late 1940s (with a curriculum mirroring that of the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights) and the 1951 Briggs v Elliott case, a critical component of what would become Brown v Board in 1954.

Donaldson ended with a call to action. “The legacy of Ms. Simkins is not dead,” he said. “And if we ever needed a Modjeska Simkins movement inspired by her legacy, you look around this world; we need it now.”

As part of the Network’s commitment to educating and mobilizing that movement, we are preparing to reprint Network Communications Director Becci Robbins’ booklet Modjeska Monteith Simkins: A South Carolina Revolutionary. It will include a new section with historical details discovered since the original printing.

The booklet, published in 2014 through a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission, has been circulated widely in the Midlands and at no cost to readers. We’d like to keep the booklet free. You can help make that possible.

To date, we have received a generous donation from Historic Columbia and a number of individual supporters, raising $1,700 of the $3,900 we need.

Please help us reach our goal by donating at our secure site or by calling our office at 803-808-3384.

To view more photos from this year’s party, see our album.

Listen to Modjeska Simkins School graduate Vikki Perry in this clip.

Network profiles three extraordinary SC women

In 2014, the SC Progressive Network was awarded a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission to produce a booklet about Modjeska Monteith Simkins. It was distributed free to readers in the Midlands, and was so well received that the Network ordered a second printing.

Last year, the Network received another grant from the Commission for two additional booklets, on gay rights activist Harriet Hancock and legal pioneer Sarah Leverette. The Hancock booklet came out in May; the Leverette booklet will be released in mid-August.

Becci Robbins, the Network’s communications director and author of the booklets, said of the project, “While I didn’t set out to write a trilogy, the booklets evolved into a package that now seems perfectly timed. Besides telling the stories of three phenomenal South Carolina women, they offer a chance to explore racism, sexism, and homophobia—problems continuing to fester in the nation’s addled psyche.

The booklet about Modjeska, whose grandparents were enslaved, reminds us of South Carolina’s grim past – and how it haunts us still. The booklet about Harriet went to press just days before the massacre in Orlando that left 49 people dead and 53 maimed in a gay nightclub.

And the last booklet about Sarah, who was born on the eve of women’s suffrage in America, comes out as the nation deliberates whether to vote for its first woman president. This historic election has come with the sad reminder in certain news outlets and on social media that misogyny is alive and well.

While the booklets provide no easy answers to the vexing problems we face, they give some historical context to help understand the current social and political climate in America and here at home. And they show the power a single citizen can have, given enough passion and commitment.
 
My hope is that these booklets will make their way into the hands of girls and young women who will be as moved and impressed as I have been by Modjeska, Harriet, and Sarah. It has been a great privilege to share their stories.”

Questions? Call the Network at 803-808-3384.

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Download this booklet to read about Modjeska’s extraordinary life.

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Click here to download Harriet Hancock booklet.

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The Sarah Leverett booklet is at the printer, and will be available in mid-August.

A look back at three weeks that changed South Carolina

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The racially motivated tragedy in Charleston’s Emanuel Church ignited a renewed resolve to remove the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s State House grounds, something the SC Progressive Network committed to 20 years ago at its founding conference. At a rally organized just days after the murders, Network Director Brett Bursey addressed the crowd of nearly two thousand, asking the assembled to become part of a social movement.

As lawmakers in special session deliberated the fate of the flag in the SC State House, citizens gathered outside in the blistering heat to demand action. The handful of Confederate supporters there got an earful.

On July 4, hundreds gathered to rally for the third time to demand lawmakers remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds. Kevin Gray spoke for the SC Progressive Network.

What did activist Modjeska Simkins think about the Confederate flag flying on the State House?

You might be surprised.

SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey talks about the long-running debate he had with his mentor about the flag, which came off the dome in 2000 — and relocated to a more visible position on the State House lawn.

You’re invited to celebrate the late, great Modjeska Simkins at a birthday party Dec. 5

Since moving its offices into 2025 Marion St., the historic home of Modjeska Simkins, the SC Progressive Network has thrown a party in her honor on her birthday, Dec. 5. Modjeska lived in the home for 60 years, where she entertained friends such as Thurgood Marshall and others not welcome in the white-only motels of the day.

Modjeska was the larger-than-life matriarch of South Carolina’s progressive movement. She spent her long life (1899-1992) acting on her belief that civil rights were just part of a larger human rights struggle. She was ahead of her time, often the only black woman at the table, and was never shy about speaking her mind.

The public is invited to a casual drop-in on Thursday, Dec. 5, between 5:30 and 7:30pm. The event is free and open to all. Light hors d’oeuvres and refreshments; cash bar. Friends, family and colleagues will be invited to share their stories of Modjeska.

See photos from last year’s gathering.

At last year’s party James Felder read a passage about Modjeska from his book Civil Rights in South Carolina: From Peaceful Protest to Groundbreaking Rulings.

To preserve the fighting spirit of Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the SC Progressive Network is establishing a school to teach a new generation of activists the skills to be effective leaders in their communities and in their government. The school will launch in early 2014. To follow the school’s progress, join us on Facebook.

Donations for the project are always welcome, as are your ideas. Contact the Network at 803-808-3384 or network@scpronet.com.

Remembering Modjeska

SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey wrote this tribute to his mentor, Modjeska Monteith Simkins, upon the occasion of her death. It ran in the May 1992 issue of POINT, four years before the newspaper was archived online. Here is a scan of the piece. Click on the image to enlarge.

The article is among the research materials being assembled for the Network’s latest project, establishing the Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights, set to launch Dec. 5, on what would have been Modjeska’s 114th birthday. Follow the progress of the project on Facebook. For more information, contact the Network at 803-808-3384 or network@scpronet.com.

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SC Progressive Network launches Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights

To preserve the fighting spirit of Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the SC Progressive Network is establishing a school to teach a new generation of activists the skills to be effective leaders in their communities and in their government.

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Modjeska was the larger-than-life matriarch of South Carolina’s progressive movement. She spent her long life (1899-1992) acting on her belief that civil rights were just part of a larger human rights struggle. She was ahead of her time, often the only black woman at the table, and was never shy about speaking her mind.

The Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights will be based in the home she lived in for 60 years, where she entertained friends such as Thurgood Marshall and others not welcome in the white-only motels of the day. The home, at 2025 Marion St. in downtown Columbia, now serves as the Network’s office and meeting space.

A generous grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission is being used as seed money. An advisory committee has been meeting to outline a curriculum, to oversee the research and production of course materials, and to map out a funding plan to sustain the project.

The school will launch on Dec. 5, on what would have been Ms. Simkins’ 114th birthday. Mark your calendars and plan to join us for a big party. The Network has celebrated Modjeska’s birthday for many years, but this one promises to be truly special. See photos from last year’s gathering, and the year before.

To follow the school’s progress, join us on Facebook. Donations for the project are always welcome, as are your ideas. Contact the Network at 803-808-3384 or network@scpronet.com.