Hello I'm Beryl Dakers and this is Palmetto Scene.

In this episode people are center stage as we meet an amazing children's advocate.

Benedict College's first and only female President, and a white journalist, who made Civil Rights History.

We'll also learn about a very special travel guide but first the preacher's daughter from Bennettsville, South Carolina, who put children first and made history while doing so.

Meet South Carolina hall of fame nominee Marian Wright Edelman.

Marian Wright was born on June sixth, nineteen thirty nine in Bennettsville, South Carolina.

It was the defining force in my life.

I grew up in a segregated rural town.

That told me as a black girl that I wasn't very valuable, but I didn't believe it.

And I always knew that I would make a difference in changing it.

I always had to test the limits.

I can't stand being told I can't do something.

And I can't stand seeing any children excluded from anything, so the seeds of much of what I do at the Children's Defense Fund grew out of what happened in Bennettsville.

Wright attended Spelman College in Atlanta from nineteen fifty seven to nineteen sixty.

An urgent time in the civil rights movement.

She quickly became deeply involved.

One day out of the sit in movement.

I went down to local NAACP office to volunteer.

And I saw all these complaints that had come in from poor black people all over Georgia that no lawyer could respond to because they didn't have the money and there weren't enough lawyers.

And I asked myself what in the world am I doing thinking about, as I was at the time, going to study?

Nineteenth century Russian literature?

I didn't want to teach.

I wanted to stay in the South.

And although I absolutely hated law school, and hated the law.

It was clear that what was needed was lawyers.

In nineteen sixty Wright enrolled at Yale Law School.

The epicenter of the northern students civil rights movement.

After she graduated in nineteen sixty three.

Her dedication to political activism led her to Mississippi.

A notoriously violent hotbed of racial strife.

She went to work in the NAACP legal defense fund office in Jackson, Mississippi.

Becoming the first black woman to practice law in the state.

The young activists was shocked by the profound destitution she encountered in the communities of the Mississippi Delta.

At the same time the issue of American poverty was rising on the national agenda.

This administration today, here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

Though alleviating poverty was not Wright's only cause, she felt it demanded the greatest urgency.

By the mid sixties she had become well known as an advocate for Mississippi's poor.

In March nineteen sixty seven Wright testified before the Senate subcommittee on employment, manpower, and poverty.

She persuaded the committee members to visit Mississippi and hear testimonials from poor residents of the state.

Appalled by the degree of privation they witnessed in Mississippi.

The committee members returned to Washington and pushed through legislation introducing free food stamps and expanding free school meal programs.

Senator Robert Kennedy especially became a vocal proponent of child welfare services, but by the end of that year.

Wright faced a major hurdle.

The promises of the great society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

In the wake of the Tet offensive.

America's eyes were on the conflict in Vietnam and the issue of hunger at home was quickly crowded off the headlines.

Then on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight Wright's friend and fellow advocate for the poor Martin Luther king junior was assassinated.

Just two months later Robert Kennedy too was murdered.

Though devastated by the deaths of these two great men.

Wright resolved to carry on their work.

America's poor had lost two of their strongest allies.

Now it was up to her to be their champion.

In the summer of nineteen sixty eight, she married Peter Edelman, whom she'd met in Mississippi when he served as Robert Kennedy's legislative assistant.

The movement simply took new forms after nineteen sixty eight.

The advocacy that I'm doing today on behalf of children is a direct result of what went on in the late sixties, but it was very clear that we had to develop new strategies.

New ways of framing issues.

New ways of tapping into the broader self interest.

So the whites would perceive it as their self interest has always been in their self interest to deal with issues of race and class.

And so, we begin to talk about children rather than poor adults.

And to talk about prevention and to show the ways in which the deprivations of black and poor children face also affect middle class and and non poor children and white children.

In nineteen seventy three Marian Wright Edelman founded the Children's Defense Fund, the first special interest group dedicated to children.

The CDF and advocacy and research center for children's issues investigates consequences of and solutions to childhood poverty.

They produce research that shows practical, economic reasons for investing in poor children.

The Children's Defense Fund's data driven, child focused approach has made it the leading child advocacy organization in the country.

As its founder and leader Marian Wright Edelman has been a powerful advocate for children for over forty years.

The many laws and programs Wright Edelman has successfully fought for through the Children's Defense Fund include: An Anti Discrimination Act for handicapped children, a bill for childcare and expanded tax credits for low income families, expansion of free school meal programs, expansion of anti teen pregnancy programs in high schools, the Family and Medical Leave Act, increased funds for the free immunization of uninsured children, and the Head Start program.

People often ask me how in the world do you keep doing this year after year.

And why did you ever choose to do this?

I said it never occurred to me not to do it.

And it wouldn't occur to me ever to give up.

♪Something inside so strong.

I know that I can make it.

Though your doing me wrong, so wrong.

Know that my pride was wrong, oh no.

Something inside so strong.♪ What an amazing lady.

Like Edelman, our next subject is also an H-B C-U graduate and she's one of a small group of only twelve women serving now as President of an historically black College or university.

Benedict College here in Columbia was actually founded by a woman.

But Dr Rosalyn Clark Artis is the first female President in the school's one hundred forty nine year history.

♪ <Artis> Hi son, how are you?

Happy first day back. "

There are probably twelve of us now in the H. B. C. U ranks that ebbs and flows over time what we know is that the standard is incredibly high for women to do this well to be successful on all fronts and the consequences for us tend to be a much sharper much faster and much higher.

There is a fair amount of pressure associated with being the first female on a college campus and this is my second time doing that so I'm getting used to it now.

I'm a mother of three of my own children.

I view myself very much as a mother of now twenty two hundred and three of the students on this campus and so I do tend to be somewhat emotive.

I do speak to them in terms of endearment.

I hug my students.

I establish relationships with them that are very maternal at times.

We're living in a "Me too" culture.

I doubt that my gentlemen peers have the opportunity to hug their students without fear of any kind of reprisal or consequence.

So there's an advantage to being a woman.

They see me and I know them and they know me and we're able to build a rapport and a relationship that I think hopefully encourages them to want to do well while they're here at Benedict college.

♪ I practiced law for a decade and rather enjoyed the practice I think I was reasonably good at it.

A good friend asked me to teach classes as an adjunct professor I thought I know nothing of teaching but I agreed to do it and what I found is that the students in the classroom were very much like the the jury in a box they were there compulsory they had to listen and yet not so compulsory.

Right?

The students chose to be there they wanted to hear what you had to say.

I I didn't hesitate.

I resigned the practice of law.

Went back to school to earn another doctorate you may know that the juris doctorate the law degree is not considered an earned doctorate as though those are given away for Christmas for people who are good rather than three years in a seat in the bar exam, but went back to Vanderbilt to earn a doctorate so that I can be competitive in higher education and I've never looked back and never regreted it all.

I chose to lead at an H. B. C. U. because I am myself the product of the historically black college.

I attended West Virginia State College then, now University in West Virginia and found that to be an amazingly transformative experience for me.

Growing up in southern West Virginia which is three percent minority state you would very often find yourself as the only person of color everywhere you went and so arriving on that campus and seeing teachers and administration, the President, the First Lady, my classmates all of whom look like me and the freedom that comes with being yourself.

Many of our historicaly black colleges and universities have suffered from historic levels of underfunding particular those that are state run.

Our private H. B. C. U's are like our private school peers around the country.

Many of our students are low wealth first generation students for whom PELL and other sources of funding have not kept pace with increases over time and so our students are less able to pay our infrastructure and technology and some of those things can be a bit dated if you have not been able to invest in them.

People thought she's insane she's cutting tuition and capping enrollment how will Benedict's survive.

Kids were getting into payment arrangements they couldn't possibly make.

They had high balances that forced them to have to drop out.

It was pointless and it was it was harming us on our financials with our bad debt reserves and our write offs and those kinds of things.

Why charge it if the customer if the customer, our students can't pay it let's be realistic and clear about what our students can afford to pay.

We'll collect it at a hundred percent and make sure that we stabilize our cash flow and stabilize Benedict College but not harm our kids and that was our ultimate goal when we made the adjustment.

I am a communicator.

I'm a nurturer.

As a mother, I tend to be in the details so processes matter to me.

How long are my students standing in line.

Are grades being posted on time?

Are they learning and loving?

Right?

Are we teaching them and developing them at the same time?

I think women are better with those kinds of things and that just happens to be what Benedict needs today.

I try not to wait for big things to happen because you miss a lot of little victories along the way.

So the student that stopped me this morning on my way in and I said hi happy first day of school and she said I'm so glad to be back I missed you.

Thats success for me.

Before the Civil Rights Act, black families traveling on long road trips across the country whether North, South East or West often didn't know if they could find a place to stop to eat along the way a rest stop perhaps or even a place to stay once they got to their destinations.

Thankfully they were aided by the Green Book a unique travel guide.

With the popularity of the movie Green Book, we decided to reprise the South Carolina story on that subject.

Before the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights laws were enacted, traveling any distance for black families had to be carefully planned.

The highways and byways were open today but few facilities were.

They depended on word of mouth and the publication the Negro Motorist Green Book to let them know where they would be welcome and safe.

The Green Book began publication in nineteen thirty six.

It also listed so called tourist homes.

The tourist homes were private homes throughout the country which were established for African American tourist and travelers.

They were really in every corner of the nation.

Many of these homes were quarters in private spaces that were for professionals or families who were traveling around the country who were trying to evade the Jim Crow policies with which restricted them from most major hotels and hotels around the country.

Dr Reginald Scott grew up in a tourist town that is now on the national register of historic places.

The Harriet M. Cornwell tourist home located at seventeen thirteen Wayne street in Columbia.

Everybody was very nice and very cool.

It was never any drama or problems and it seemed so natural.

The entertainers stood out more than anybody else cause ya know I would be more excited.

Seventeen thirteen Wayne street is still an impressive structure from the outside but on the inside its showing its age.

Those signs of a glorious past are still evident much work is needed to restore it and allow it to last for at least another one hundred years.

There is a similar challenge for the former tourist home now owned by Mrs Delores Frazier.

We visited with four generations of her family.

Mrs.

Frazier is in her eighties now but she remembers when her Aunt Semmi welcomed people from far and wide to their spacious home.

You want me to point them out?

Yeah!

Who is this?

That's Grandma Alice.

and the one standing behind him that's John Henry.

John Henry Phillip and these are the four children.

How did mama Semmi start this house?

as a tourist home?

By taking the students, they were going to school and from then on John Evans who ran the college gin, which was like a hotel for Blacks at that time and when they would get overcrowded, he would call her and she would house them, put em up.

This home is not on the historic registry.

The removal of a front porch so that sidewalks could be put in many years ago would not allow that designation.

Still, this family wants desperately to restore and preserve this home.

I think that having it passed down from generation to generation and looking at the house and really knowing that my family has been in this house and walked through all of these doors and all of these rooms to know that I'm doing the same thing being able to be here.

Speaking of the the Civil Rights Era, Marshall Doswell a white journalist from Rock Hill made history as a Civil Rights media advocate.

You would think her gross in great that to appreciate the fact that people remembered there was a time in the world when Rock Hill was different.

And back in those days I had, along with a lot of other people, I had a hand in changing things I had an enormous advantage because the press, I learned many times ago if talked to my best friend, tell him something at the dinner table, he wouldn't pay attention to me but if I went down to the office and wrote an editorial, he would say I read in an editoral other day He pays attention to the written word.

Doswell came to Rock Hill as the managing editor of the evening Herald in nineteen fifty seven.

After living in South Carolina for a short time he was made aware of the racial division intention that existed here.

Knowing the power of the press Doswell felt called to use his position to advocate for equality and change.

Sometime during that first month in Rock Hill, I was going from the newspaper office up Main street toward the hotel and all of a sudden I saw a guy coming straight toward me, on the front of Freedom's department store which no longer exists and he had on a Ku Klux Klan uniform white with the great white... and I said... I don't believe this.

Right in the middle of the broad day?

We didn't have the Klan in Richmond.

At the time, Doswell's belief in equality was not commonplace his advocacy for racial justice was perceived as progressive and radical.

People did say that I was a radical people did say that I overstepped my bounds.

So if I was going to write a bad thing importance of us learning to live together, listening to each other and and live with each other you have to find that the hard way.

How does that work?

It aint easy.

You have to reluctantly realize that your way of looking at something is not the only way to look at it.

One of the first meaningful editorials I wrote waited on the line and I had to submit it to Mr.

Patrick and he said Doswell "We can't run that" and I was madder than hell.

And he said let me tell you why if we run that editorial it'll make everybody in town mad as a devil and when you make people mad they don't really think like they ought to and so we will be creating a problem rather than solving a problem.

So what we're going to do he said is approach it very softly and tenderly and as we go along maybe we'll step it up a little bit more you know a little bit more.

So that's the policy that we felt would be useful and hopefully would make some headway.

I think Marshall in many ways was typical of progressive newspapers throughout the south when you read their editorials today you think, oh boy, that's kind of mamie pandie.

It wasn't that hard hitting but at the time it was.

He was a member of the white establishment, at the time he was doing these things and and and leading this charge.

That is, that's an important memory.

It wasn't left entirely up to the black community to lead the charge.

They they knew that this member of this establishment who had a public forum was willing to step out on a limb with them and I think that's important part.

Marshall is one of the few people I know who have lived the social justice that a lot of people preach.

As a result, Doswell was honored as a freedom walkway local hero by the city of Rock Hill, this past November.

Aside from honoring new local heroes every year the freedom walkway memorializes the Friendship Nine whose sit in was a staple in Rock Hill's civil rights history.

Their conviction for their related arrest was only overturned recently.

We had a situation where the mayor publicly apologized to the Friendship Nine students.

And today it seems like well that was a long time coming but if you look back from from early nineteen sixties, I don't think many people white or black would have ever thought that would happen.

I think people like Marshall hoped that it would happen and they had they never lost faith with the good people of Rock Hill and the belief that Rock Hill will eventually do things right and I think history sort of proves that they did.

The current political climate is is on the cusp of slowing down or even reversing some of the gains in racial gestures that have been made over the last thirty four years.

It's...I think it's important that we understand where we came from.

It's imperative that we learn how to talk with other people who don't look like us, who don't think like us, who don't worship like us and it, we have to realize that what was right when we were kids really isn't germane anymore because not only have you change but the world has changed and the world will be different tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

As the newspaper man you know, you meet an awful lot of people ya talk to an awful lot of people in sometimes they they break down and just tell you what they think and I realize, an awful lot of people will think the same way I do.

I also realized that I am not always right but I did fail come to the conviction if my life is going to be valid if I am ever going to measure up to what some people who went before me expect of me, it's got to be doing the right thing.

If you want your life to mean something and you only go around one time then then do what you think is the right thing to do and do it because it is the right thing to do.

For additional stories about our state please visit our website at palmettoscene.org and of course be sure to follow us on social media whether Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

As we leave you tonight with our Palmetto postcard a reminder to please send us your postcards whether video or photo.

Send it to Palmettoscene@SCETV.org for ETV and Palmetto Scene I'm Beryl Dakers.

Thanks for watching ♪