Claudia Smith Brinson’s Stories of Struggle: The Clash Over Civil Rights in South Carolina is a contribution to South Carolina’s written history of the people, places, scenes, crimes, social movements, and lawsuits that comprised the civil rights movement in South Carolina from the 1930s to the 1960s. Brinson is a former reporter for The State newspaper and The Columbia Record. During her 30 years of reporting, Brinson interviewed individuals on both sides of the struggle for racial equality in our state. She was personally affected by observing the false narrative maintained by white South Carolinians who held on to power by keeping African Americans suppressed through “systemic racism.”
In 2003, Brinson officially began her work on Stories of Struggle: The Clash Over Civil Rights in South Carolina. Brinson sought out the heroes of the Civil Rights era in South Carolina.
“I interviewed 150 black activists, their spouses, siblings, children, and friends. The modesty, benevolence, and courage I encountered moved me and it seemed so wrong their stories might die with them. Many of the elders I interviewed had experienced the bleakest, cruelest side of South Carolina—a beating because deference was missing, an eviction from land and home in retaliation for a petition, a pitiful education lacking books and bathrooms and buses, a relative run out of town, or lynching. Sometimes, because of time and place, such stories had to be secret. Sometimes they were just too sad to tell. I asked for those stories,” Brinson writes.
Claudia Brinson
Brinson’s book is divided into five chapters, each focusing on the life of a civil rights leader whose impact was remarkable and changed history. Each chapter stands alone and could be read separately. However, the book weaves together a complete chronology of the historical events and people who fought for African Americans to have the rights of full citizenship in South Carolina.
From Brinson’s research, we read in terrifying detail exactly how the African American students at Claflin and South Carolina State were affected when the firefighters unleashed tear gas and fire hoses on them in freezing cold temperatures before arresting them. We read in grim details the attempted lynching of Rev. James Myles Hinton Sr., president of the NAACP of South Carolina, who was taken from his home at night, brutally beaten in the woods, but left alive by members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) because they thought they had the wrong man.
We read of the impoverished conditions of the students in Summerton schools in Clarendon County whose parents advocated for a school bus and with the support of the NAACP brought a lawsuit, Briggs vs. Elliott, which became a case upon which Brown vs. Board of Education was decided in the United States Supreme Court. We also sadly read of the backlash against the people of town of Summerton and Clarendon County by the white leaders of the state who openly resisted federal decisions in favor of the African Americans.
Brinson writes of the influence of charismatic African American leaders such as Rev. James Myles Hinton Sr. who worked tirelessly to advocate for African American people in South Carolina as the president of the South Carolina National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Hinton developed the backbone of the NAACP, speaking, writing, and calling for investigations into the treatment of African Americans in South Carolina, setting into motion lawsuits which would bring individual cases before the judicial system and challenge white politicians and leaders.
Brinson dedicates another chapter to Rev. Cecil Augustus Ivory, a pastor and leader who mobilized a bus boycott in Rock Hill, developed an independent bus system for African Americans to replace their dependence on white leaders for transportation, and led and participated in the sit-ins at lunch counters in Rock Hill’s McCrory’s and Woolworth stores. Ivory was also bound to a wheelchair, the result of a childhood accident that left him crippled for life. Brinson records the words of Willie McCleod, a Friendship protestor, “Rev’ Ivory was the man out front. He was willing to sacrifice his life, but he kept us nonviolent. He always reminded us we don’t fight, and he had a way of organizing. He would put an idea out there, and you felt in your heart it would be the right thing to do.”
Brinson’s message is to inspire her readers to go out into the world and make a difference for good. She concludes, “Why one more story of struggle? We all want upbeat, finite stories, a way to segment life and history itself into obvious beginnings and happy endings. South Carolina is forever at the beginning. But bright threads run through. Someone from before, who didn’t give up, teaches someone now. Besides, human rights movements don’t ever end. This book does, with names—Eliza Gamble Briggs. Thomas Walter Gaither. Mae Frances Moultrie. Rev. Cecil Augustus Ivory. James Thomas McCain. Rev. Isaiah DeQuincey Newman. Mary Moultrie. Rosetta Simmons. Cecil J. Williams. Please add your own.”
Claudia Smith Brinson is available to speak to book clubs, community groups, or social groups by Zoom about her work. Brinson will be speaking at the South Carolina Women In Leadership November Virtual Book Club November 18 at 5:30 p.m. Register at scwomenlead.net/november book-club.
A Virtual Book Launch will be hosted by Historic Columbia November 19 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Brinson will be speaking with civil rights activist and photographer Cecil J. Williams in a discussion moderated by Historic Columbia executive director Robin Waites. Register at www.historiccolumbia.org.
Brinson can be reached by email at claudiabwrites@gmail.com. Stories of Struggle: The Clash Over Civil Rights in South Carolina can be purchased at www.storiesofstruggle.com and at www.hfsbooks.com/books/stories-of-struggle-brinson.
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