Treadwell, Henrie Monteith
Educator, activist. Born Henrie Dobbins Monteith in 1946 to R. Rebecca Monteith in Columbia, South Carolina, Treadwell is a third-generation activist raised in “a home where issues of social justice, civil rights, were always at the forefront.” As a child, she lived on farmland acquired by her grandparents, Rachel Hull and Henry C. Monteith, at the intersection of Mason Road and North Main Street. Her grand- mother, a teacher and founder of the Monteith School, was an early member of the Niagara Movement and the local branch of the NAACP whom her children and grandchildren credited with their own activism. Other fixtures in Treadwell’s childhood were aunts Modjeska Monteith Simkins and Emma Monteith Wheeler and uncle, Dr. Henry Dobbins Monteith, who along with her own mother were active in the early civil rights movement.
Although Rebecca Monteith sent her daughter to Blessed Martin De Porres School, a private Catholic school in Columbia, rather than the resource-strapped Monteith School, Treadwell was always aware of the price paid by activists. She participated in the clothing and food drives led by her aunt, Modjeska Simkins, which helped Black families targeted for participating in the case Briggs v. Elliott, the Clarendon County case that became part of the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. For Treadwell, “It was just what we did, and we did it all the time.” Following the Brown ruling, she attended another private school in Virginia, St. Francis de Sales High School in Powhatan, as a means of preparing her for an eventual challenge to the University of South Carolina’s (UofSC) policy against admitting Black students. Due to her aunt’s public role in the landmark ruling, out-of-state schooling provided a way for Treadwell’s mother to “shield [her] until it was time to act.”
In May 1962, shortly before graduating at the top of her high school class, Monteith applied for admission at the UofSC, but was rejected. The Monteiths sought representation from Matthew J. Perry Jr., Harvey Gantt’s attorney in a lawsuit against Clemson. As both cases moved to trial, the violent desegregation at the University of Mississippi served as a sobering reminder of what might happen in South Carolina. An editorial in the UofSC student newspaper The Gamecock calling for law and order because “there’s no turning back the tide of integration” was met with a wide range of responses that reflected the attitudes of White South Carolinians. One called the piece “a breath of fresh air,” while others echoed the sentiment that calling “integration ‘progress’ is contrary to everything sacred in the South” and that giving up the fight was akin to “roll[ing] over and be[ing] trampled by the ever-growing, tyrannical, federal government.”
By the time Treadwell’s case reached the courtroom, however, the peaceful integration of Clemson made integration at the UofSC seem inevitable. At trial Perry called the university’s registrar, Rollin Godfrey, as the only witness. Godfrey confirmed that he had returned Henrie Monteith’s application based on her race, “pursuant to [his] instructions” from university officials. The court ruled in Treadwell’s favor, and she spent the summer deciding if she would transfer from the College of Notre Dame, where she was already registered for the fall 1963 semester. Because her case was a class-action suit, it opened up the opportunity for both James Solomon and Robert Anderson to successfully apply. Treadwell submitted her new application on August 13. Less than two weeks later, her uncle’s home was bombed. Although there were fears that September 11, 1963 would devolve into violence, the administration’s planning for “I-Day” ensured that registration was uneventful. For most students and administrators, integration was a reality they were forced to accept, and they did so begrudgingly with little overt violence. All three students experienced harassment in the form of threatening calls, late-night door knocking, and racial slurs.
Treadwell later recalled “their” September 11 as “just one more small step on the path to equality for all citizens of South Carolina.” She spent the next two years focusing on her work and graduated in 1965, becoming the university’s first Black graduate since Reconstruction. After completing graduate work at Boston University and Atlanta University and post-doctoral studies at Harvard University, Treadwell served as the program director at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. Today she is a world-renowned public health expert affiliated with the Morehouse School of Medicine.
KATHERINE ALLEN
“Henrie Monteith Treadwell, interviewed by Marcia Synnott, 14 November 1980.” Oral History Collections, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.
“Letters . . . We Get Letters . . . FINALLY,” The Gamecock, October 12, 1962. “Little Rock Repeat: By Right of Might,” The Gamecock, October 5, 1962. “Miscellany,” The Gamecock, February 1, 1963.
“Monteith Speaks Out,” The Gamecock, May 10, 1963.
“Negro Girl Seeks Admission To Carolina,” The Gamecock, November 2, 1962.
“Raised for Activism: Henrie Monteith and the Desegregation of the University of South Carolina.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine Vol. 109, No. 2 (April
2008), 121–147.
“USC Argues Against Suit,” The State, June 22, 1963.
“USC Asks Integration Suit Be Dropped as Negro Girl Seeks Carolina Admission,” The
Gamecock, January 11, 1963.
