At the 30th anniversary of Jubilee,

Festival of Heritage August 21, the Historic Columbia Foundation (HCF) honored the 30 most significant African Americans in Columbia and Richland County. Gloria James, HCF board member, chaired the event at the Columbia Convention Center. Mayor Bob Coble presented a City of Columbia proclamation recognizing the Festival of Heritage Week. Charles Ashe gave the invocation, and Tiaa Rutherford introduced members of the nominating committee.

Kwame Dawes, USC Poet in Residence, stole the show by reading poems he had written about each honoree, samples of which are included in italics.

• Beryle Dakers (director of cultural

programming for SCETV) - Her

calling is to shatter the silence with

words.

• Celia Dial Saxon (1857- 1935, Booker T. Washington High School history

teacher for 57 years) - A black

woman redeeming the lost time with

books….

• Celia Mann (1799- 1867, freed slave who became nurse and business

leader) - See those hands; those hands

don't know idling…

• Charles F. Bolden Jr. (1946- ,

Astronaut Hall of Fame) - You have

always looked to the sky to find the

genius that will teach us how to fly.

• C.A. Johnson (1882- 1970, first principal of B.T. Washington High School, first supervisor of Negro

Schools in Columbia) - … a man who

spun Latin declensions and hard lessons for the youth…

• E.W. Cromartie II (1945- , Columbia City Councilman) - … lawyer- man, you learned to talk

away the cages, learned to fight with

language for doors to open.

• Edmund Perry Palmer Jr. (1935- , Columbia's first licensed

African- American mortician) - Yes, you

have buried our cherished ones, but in

your art is the grace of a heart filled

with the hope of our race.

• Edwin Robert Russell (1913- 1996, chemist with Manhattan Project which produced first atomic

bomb) - A mind with the imagination

to split atoms…

• Fannie Phelps Adams (1917- , Richland One teacher for 40 years) -

She won't let the children stay hidden in

the cave…

• Frederick Benjamin Schumpert (1893- 1974, owner of successful

Columbia lumber company) - … the sap

never stopped flowing, prosperity

always on tap.

• George A. Elmore (1905- 1959, successfully sued the SC Democratic

Party for the right to vote) - … he told

the old racist Democrats, "No more!"

• Grace Jordan McFadden (1943- 2004, former director of USC African- American Studies Program) -

Professor…who taught educators to fortify

their hearts with the art of freedom.

• Harold R. Boulware Sr. (1913- 1983, chief counsel for SC

NAACP) - … you taught this people that

its redemption lay in doing the right by

its own words, and they heard, good

barrister, we heard.

• Rev. Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1911- 1985, first SC African- American senator since Reconstruction) - But with gentle dignity, you, Darlington

County man, whispered a prayer, then

declared it all spiritual this injustice

against the Negro…

• Isaac Samuel Leevy (1876- 1968, tailor, merchant, funeral home operator,

banker, politician) - … you grew

businesses, broadcasting good seeds all

over Columbia.

• I. S. Leevy Johnson (1942- , lawyer, legislator, businessman, recipient

of Order of the Palmetto) - You are

the kind of big- man attorney with a

taste for mercy, a man who turns words

into power.

• Isaac W. Williams (1945- 2008,

NAACP field director) - Seventeen times

locked- in, seventeen times, you stepped

out again, and you gathered around

you the army of freedom warriors.

• Jacob Stroyer (1849- 1908, emancipated slave, author, minister) - … a

man bought and sold who will always

remind those after me with eloquent

words, that God was no friend of

slavery.

• James E. Clyburn (1940- , congressman)

- … a man well- groomed to

carry the cries of ordinary people with

him to the highest levels of this nation.

• Rev. James Miles Hinton (1891- 1970, president of SC NAACP) -

… ah prophet, how you burned your

trail of defiance across this state…

• Kay Patterson (1931- , educator,

SCEA official, legislator) - Yes, firebrand,

giving fire for hot fire where fire

is needed…

• Larry F. Lebby (1950- , artist) -

You have a heart that lives to restore

what was damaged in the tearing apart

of people by hate.

• Luther J. Battiste III (1949- , lawyer, Columbia City Councilman) … you became a servant of others, the

carrier of wisdom, a man of firsts,

pathfinder, always game to a new challenge.

• Matilda Arabelle Evans (1872- 1935, first African- American woman in SC to practice medicine) -

… you trained your hands to be gentle,

to heal, to heal the sins of ignorance and

neglect.

• Matthew J. Perry Jr. (1921- ,

lawyer, judge) - … you studied hard and

nursed that good dream deep in your

heart.

• Modjeska Monteith Simkins (1899- 1992, civil rights activist, banker,

teacher) - … you took all the abuse and

spit from cross- burners, the canker of

this city of Klansmen, this terrible place

where black folks had to fight for their

right, and how you stood your ground

and fought the good fight.

• Nathaniel Jerome Frederick (1875- 1938, principal of Howard School, lawyer, newspaper publisher) -

Stern jaw, straight back, proud black

man…

• Richard Samuel Roberts

(1880- 1936, photographer) - … everyday

black people captured on those

glass plates in their moment of elegant

dignity…

• Sarah Mae Flemming (1933- 1993, successfully sued SCE&G to end segregated seating on buses) -

She ignored the illogic of the color line

on that bus, and took an empty seat up

front…

• William Manigault (1883- 1940, undertaker, casket maker, funeral home

operator) - …t he promises of glory up

above could sustain us in this life, before

the ground swallowed us…you,

Manigault,…understood this truth…