SC Black History
First African American author to publish a book in 1873 while she was enslaved.
Poet Phillis Wheatley Peters
A boxer from Beaufort, SC was the first to defeat Muhammad Ali
Joe Frazier
She sang before a crowd of 75,000 people on the Lincoln Memorial steps on Easter Sunday, 1939.
Marian Anderson
First African American to represent Georgia in the US Senate
Raphael Gamaliel Warnock
host of the genealogy television series Finding Your Roots on PBS.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr
Trained at Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg before fighting in France during World War One
The 369th Infantry Regiment AKA Harlem Hell-fighters
Spartanburg Sluggers
Won the Pulitzer Prize for the books (2017) "The Underground Railroad" And (2020) "The Nickel Boys"
Colson Whitehead
Grimke Sisters white abolitionist exiled from South Carolina for their anti-slavery views
Angelina Emily and Sarah Moore Grimke
First African American to have a play Performed on Broadway 1959 classic, A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry
First African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize for mediation in Israel
Ralph Johnson Bunch
One thousand people marched in protest after Jackie Robinson was prohibited from using a white-only waiting room at the Greenville, SC airport. (When)
On New Year's Day, 1960
First African American student admitted to Clemson University
Harvey Bernard Gantt
After freeing himself and his family by commandeering the Confederate ship Planter in the Charleston harbor during the Civil War also apart of US Congress
Robert Small
Harriet Tubman Led how many African American Soldiers of the Union Army from South Carolina in what year
150 : 1863
1968 massacre in which police officers shot thirty African American students who were protesting segregation at a local bowling alley (Where)
Orangeburg, SC
The time and place the Spartanburg baseball team practiced
Duncan Park in Spartanburg from 1928-1952
Created "The Banjo Lesson" first African American painter to
exhibit his work at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Henry Ossawa Tanner
First black Mayor of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina
Harvey Bernard Gantt
African American architect designed, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
Philip Goodwin Freelon
Historic Community in northern Spartanburg county,
Simpson Foster & Emanuel Waddell called Little Africa
Took a knee during a professional football game
Colin Kaepernick
Godfather of Soul
James Joseph Brown
Some of the most famous female HBCU Alumni from Spelman College, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Stacey Abrams and Alice Walker
In response to the violence of the Red Summer of 1919, Claude McKay wrote,
If We Must Die