Education

She was a founder of the Bethlehem Center, an educational and community center in one of Spartanburg’s black communities sponsored by Bethel Methodist Church.

South Carolina heralds the moderation of its leadership during the civil rights era, especially when compared to the actions of leaders in other Deep South states. Moderate leaders put accommodation over confrontation and worked within the legal framework. But these same leaders also did all they could to manipulate the government and the legal system to forestall civil rights.

The university opened its doors on October 27, 1869, without regard to race, color, creed, religion, or complexion. On December 18, 1869, the school received a charter from the South Carolina General Assembly and became the first historically black college or university in the state.

Clark is credited with the creation in 1957 of the “citizenship school” model, which ultimately engaged thousands of ordinary people in literacy and political education throughout the South.

The train depot proved essential to Clemson’s prosperity. Through it passed most of the people and supplies connected with the town and college.

Although Clemson Blue Cheese has never been a profit-making venture, it has earned excellent reviews from food critics and has been a popular public-relations tool, spreading the Clemson name around the globe.

Under the leadership of fourteen presidents since its inception, Clemson’s mission continues to focus primarily on agriculture, engineering, and science, although academic offerings have expanded to include degree programs in the arts, humanities, education, and business.

By the start of the twenty-first century, efforts focused more on families and youth, while still maintaining a strong agricultural base and its traditional emphasis on economic and community development, environmental issues, food safety, and nutrition.

One of Clemson’s most passionate postwar goals was to establish a college to provide practical education in agriculture and the sciences, as he believed that there would be “no hope for the South short of widespread scientific education.”

The building’s primary construction flaw was that no stairway extended to the first-floor hallway. Instead, the sole exit was a narrow doorway leading from a cloakroom toward an exterior wooden stairwell.

Because of the richness of her diary entries, she left a legacy of South Carolina upcountry history that is useful on several levels: not only does it document local, state, and regional history, but it also serves as a valuable record of Victorian female domesticity and a rare peek into a snippet of southern feminine life, from the mundane to the grand, over the course of twenty-four years.

Following the Civil War, the future of Clinton appeared bleak. The railroad ceased operation, and Laurens County was plagued with racial violence. However, prospects rose in the 1870s, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Jacobs and the local entrepreneur Mercer Silas Bailey.

Clyburn represents the state’s “largest and poorest legislative district,” and this has led him to support legislation that addresses issues such as health care, transportation, environmental justice, and education.

At the start of the twenty-first century, Coastal Carolina had an enrollment of more than 4,600 students and some 200 full-time faculty. While more than half of the students are South Carolina residents, the remainder come from all over the United States and more than forty countries.

Despite challenges, Coker College held on to its roots in the liberal arts.

Along with his varied business concerns, Coker took a strong interest in promoting education. Largely through his efforts and financing, Coker College, originally a liberal arts college for women (later coeducational), was established in Hartsville in 1908. Coker’s long and successful career provided a human face to the state’s successful transition from the Old South to the New South.

Classes emphasized moral discipline along with a classical liberal arts education, which included Latin and Greek, literature, rhetoric, and philosophy.

While now the setting for state, county, and municipal governments, it took shape in the wilderness near the geographic center of South Carolina, thus answering the demands of the populous upcountry for an administrative authority more “Centrical” than far-off Charleston.

Throughout its history, the college has focused its attention on the higher educational needs of women, and curricular offerings have reflected the social and economic changes impacting women’s experiences. Public service has been a key emphasis in the college’s mission.

Founded as an undergraduate college in 1921, Columbia International University has been one of the symbolic centers to which fundamentalists and conservative evangelical Protestants in South Carolina have gravitated.