The Modjeska Simkins School is indebted to our guest presenters, past and present, who have been generous with their time and talent.
The school’s primary staff consists of Brett Bursey, Executive Director of the SC Progressive Network Education Fund,
and lead instructor Dr. Robert Greene II, who teaches at Claflin University
• • •
Jack Bass (journalist; retired Associated Press bureau chief; award-winning author of “The Palmetto State” and “The Transformation of Southern Politics”
Fergus Bordewich (journalist and award-winning author of “The First Congress,” “Congress at War,” and “The Klan War”
Dr. Millicent Brown (political activist; educator; author; S.C. ACLU Board of Directors
W. Lewis Burke (attorney; professor emeritus, University of South Carolina School of Law; author of “At Freedom’s Door: African American Founding Fathers and Lawyers in Reconstruction” and “Matthew J. Perry: The Man, His Times and His Legacy”
Brett Bursey (political activist; community organizer; co-founder of Grass Roots Organizing Workshop and the S.C. Progressive Network
Dr. Orville Vernon Burton (author of “The Age of Lincoln” and “Lincoln’s Unfinished Work”; professor at Clemson University and University of Illinois)
Cecil Cahoon (organizational specialist, National Education Association)
Jim Campbell (educator, civil rights leader, social justice activist) (d)
Mandy Carter (LGBTQ political activist; co-founder of National Black Justice Coalition)
S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (political activist, educator, social work administrator, legislator)
John Crangle (attorney, journalist, former director of S.C. Common Cause)
Kyle Criminger (co-chair, S.C. Progressive Network Education Fund)
Beryl Dakers (journalist, producer at South Carolina Educational Television)
Armand Derfner (human and civil rights attorney; constitutional law professor; co-author of “Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court”)
Dr. Bobby Donaldson (professor and director, University of South Carolina Center for Civil Rights History and Research)
Graham Duncan (former executive director of the South Caroliniana Library)
Howard Duvall (executive director the South Carolina Municipal Association)
Dr. Justene Hill Edwards (author of “Unfree Markets”; professor at University of Virginia)
S.C. Sen. Mike Fanning (educator, executive director of the Olde English Consortium, legislator)
James Felder (civil rights activist; author of “Civil Rights in South Carolina”; former legislator)
Nikky Finney (progressive activist; award-winning poet; professor at University of Kentucky, Berea College, and University of South Carolina)
Bill Fletcher Jr. (labor organizer; political activist; co-author of “The Indispensible Ally” and “Solidarity Divided”)
Omari Fox (community organizer; artist; co-founder of Columbia chapter of Black Lives Matter)
Herb Frazier (journalist; co-author of “Sleeping with the Ancestors”)
Dr. Burnett Gallman (former chief of internal medicine; author; lecturer on medicine and African history and culture)
Dr. Erik Gellman (author of “Death Blow to Jim Crow” and co-author of “The Gospel of the Working Class”; labor studies professor at University of North Carolina)
Dr. Will Goins (educator; artist; former CEO of the Eastern Cherokee, Southern Iroquois, and United Tribes of South Carolina) (d)
Kevin Alexander Gray (community organizer; political activist; author of “Waiting for Lightning to Strike”; former chair of S.C. ACLU) (d)
Dr. Robert Greene II (lead instructor, Modjeska Simkins School for Human Rights; professor at Claflin University; co-editor of “Invisible No More: The African American Experience at the University of South Carolina”; book review editor and blogger for the Society of U.S. Intellectual Historians)
Dr. Michelle Haberland (professor at Georgia Southern University; author of “Striking Beauties”)
Dr. Jon Hale (author and professor, College of Charleston and University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne)
Harriet Hancock (attorney; social justice activist; founder of Columbia chapter of PFLAG)
Harold Hatcher (Chief of the Waccamaw Tribal Council)
Kathy Howell (political activist, community organizer)
Chris Judge (professor at University of South Carolina-Lancaster; assistant director of the Native American Studies Center)
Meeghan Kane (former professor of African American studies and Southern history at Benedict College; editor of “Unsweetened Magazine”)
Sarah Leverette (educator and law librarian; former member of S.C. Workers Compensation Commission and S.C. Constitutional Revision Committee) (d)
T. Lilly Little Water (human rights activist; CEO of the S.C Indian Affairs Commission; founder of the Indigenous Womens Alliance Committee)
Dr. Ed Madden (author; professor and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at University of South Carolina) and his husband, Bert Easter, longtime LGBTQ+ activist
Kamau Marcharia (human rights activist; community organizer; )
Dr. Frank Martin II (professor of art history and theory at S.C. State University; curator of “The Orangeburg Massacre and America’s Fight for Freedom”)
Joseph McGill (History and Culture Coordinator at Magnolia Plantation; director of Slave Dwelling Project; author, “Sleeping with the Ancestors”)
Dr. Alison McLetchie (professor of sociology and cultural anthropology at S.C. State University; co-editor of “Contributions of HBCUs in the 20th Century”)
S.C. Rep. Joe Neal (pastor and social justice activist; legislator; co-founder of S.C. Progressive Network) (d)
Lewis Pitts (reformed attorney, and founder of Project on Corporations Law and Democracy)
Rob Richie (author and executive director of FairVote)
Becci Robbins (journalist; author of “Generation Know: Inside Columbia, South Carolina’s Radical Youth Movements 1968-1988,” “Modjeska Monteith Simkins: A South Carolina Revolutionary,” and three other books profiling South Carolina’s lesser-known history and heroes)
Dr. Todd Shaw (professor of political science and African American studies at University of South Carolina; former president of National Conference of Black Political Scientists)
Hoyt Wheeler (author; USC professor; and nationally recognized labor arbiter) (d)
Dr. Jennifer Whitmer Taylor (professor of public history at Duquesne University, author of “Reconstructing Memory”)
Dr. Kerry Taylor (professor of labor history at The Citadel; director of the Charleston Oral History Program; author of “American Labor and the Cold War”)
Tom Turnipseed (former legislator; community activist; former director of S.C. Association of Independent Schools) (d) and his wife, Judy Turnipseed, who managed his campaigns and law office
Karen Watson (political activist, community organizer)
Cecil Williams (civil rights photographer; curator of the South Carolina Civil Rights Museum; author of “Freedom and Justice: Four Decades of the Civil Rights Struggle as Seen by a Black Photographer of the Deep South”)