Lowman lynchings

Aiken owes its existence to the South Carolina Railroad, its personality to its erstwhile “winter colony” of wealthy northern sports enthusiasts, and its economic vitality and relatively cosmopolitan spirit to the U.S. government’s massive Savannah River Site nuclear weapons facility.

Lynching became so widespread that the years 1882 to 1930 have been termed the “lynching era.”

Despite the racial barriers that hampered African Americans in the early twentieth century, Frederick became a successful lawyer. Before his death in 1938, he appeared before the South Carolina Supreme Court thirty-three times, more than any African American lawyer up to that time.

The Ku Klux Klan was a paramilitary organization formed during Reconstruction to oppose the Republican Party and restore white supremacy in the South. Another organization called the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1915 after the success of the film Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Reconstruction Klan.

Inaugurated on January 16, 1923, McLeod took office amid a prolonged statewide agricultural depression. Despite the economic crisis, McLeod advocated increased legislative spending on public education. As governor, he signed the 6-0-1 Law, which guaranteed all children in South Carolina at least six months of schooling annually.

After an unsuccessful bid for the governorship in 1910, Richards was appointed to the state Railroad Commission, where he sat for twelve years between 1910 and 1926. During that time he shifted his political allegiance from Tillman to Coleman Blease, the victor in the 1910 gubernatorial election.