Raynique Syas was born in Los Angeles, CA, in 1985. She is a Charleston Area Justice Ministry organizer. She remembers growing up in Watts in a typical urban area of the city impacted by poverty, drugs, and violence. There, she also experienced a profound sense of community and the support of her family strong women. Syas states that it was much later in life that she understood the systemic injustices that plagued her community and affirms it was this awareness that fuels her activism. Syas moved to Charleston looking for better opportunities for her three children but was unprepared for the cultural differences and the racism she encountered in South Carolina. Finally, she talks about why she joined Charleston Area Justice Ministry (CAJM), first as a member and team leader and later as an organizer. She reflects on one of the biggest CAJM efforts, the racial audit of Charleston and North Charleston police departments, and how COVID impacted organizing work.
Whitemarsh Smith III, Charleston native, Citadel alum, and long-time president of the Charleston Branch Pilot’s Association, has an extensive history in the waters of Charleston. In this interview, Smith dives into his experience as a Charleston pilot and provides details of various historical events he has witnessed. As a young man, Smith chose to take the college route and apply to The Citadel rather than head to Vietnam during the war. He graduated from The Citadel in 1966. He recounts his encounters at The Citadel and discusses his time following graduation being in the National Guard, where he witnessed a hospital strike here in Charleston in 1969. Smith details the challenges which came along with his apprenticeship during the process of becoming a Charleston pilot, as they spent the majority of their time on a boat. He gives listeners insight into the day-to-day operations as a Charleston pilot on a cargo ship as well as some of his own unique experiences. This includes experiencing DEA raids of foreign cargo ships, weathering hurricane Hugo, the recovery of the Hunley, and others. At the time of the interview, Smith was 77 years old and was planning his retirement.
Taylor Allred was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He was inspired to join Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) by the Bernie Sanders’ campaign of 2016. In 2018, he joined the Charleston group and was a co-facilitator in applying for the chapter status. He has held several offices, including the chair of the eco-socialist group. Allred states that Charleston DSA members are key players in several relevant regional political issues. Among them challenging the 287(g) agreement between the Charleston Sheriff Office and ICE, Medicaid for all, the relief effort in response to COVID, the Mutual Aid Fund, and housing and environmental justice. He reflects on the impact DSA members are having in the PRO Act campaign. Finally, he discusses the future of DSA and socialist organizing in the South.
Wendy Dallas Damron was born in 1973 in Detroit, Michigan. In 2013, Damron, her husband, and her two children moved to the South Carolina Lowcountry attracted by the area's beauty, warm temperatures, and conservative politics. In the interview, Damron defines herself as Reagan's conservative, talks about her initial enthusiasm with the Tea Party, and remembers her frustration when she realized the movement was unable to change the federal government. She understood the importance of focusing her activism and efforts on local and state government issues. In 2016, Damron attended a Heritage Foundation event and learned about the Convention of the States Project. Since then, she has been working to have it signed in South Carolina becoming the Coastal Region’s captain and legislative liaison. Damron is also a board member of the Palmetto Promise Institute, a South Carolina conservative think tank.
Nick Rubin was born in Anderson, South Carolina, and moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 2005 to attend the College of Charleston. This interview focuses on his political work, particularly his experiences with Occupy Charleston in 2012. Rubin remembers his early experiences with politics opposing the war in Iraq while in high school and later in college with Food Not Bombs. He talks in detail about the Occupy Charleston actions: the 99 hours occupation at Brittlebank Park, the disruption of the campaign events of Michelle Bachmann at the York Town and Rick Santorum at The Citadel, the marches in downtown Charleston, and the occupation of Marion Square that ended with police repression and detention of the activists. Finally, Rubin reflects on the limitations of Occupy's strategies and the legacy of the movement to the current Charleston political landscape.
Corey Clayton is a College of Charleston graduate, University of Alabama Birmingham graduate, and a member of Omega PSI Phi Fraternity, Inc., who at the time of the interview worked for Brownstone Construction Group building the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. His interest in engineering goes back to the summers working for his grandfather and his father, both of whom were general contractors. Additionally, he always had an interest in history. When he learned that the International African American Museum was going to be built, he knew he had to be a part of that process and decided to work for Brownstone Construction Group, a Black owned company, as a Quality Control Manager. In the interview, Clayton remembers the college professors that guided him and provided readings that allowed him to understand better his history. Finally, he reflects on the museum's relevance to the region and the deep personal significance of playing a part in its coming to fruition.
John Gardner was born in Hilton Head, SC (South Carolina), and raised in a tight-knit Black community in Beaufort, SC. In this interview, Gardner recalls his early years when his father owned a grocery store, and his mother was a schoolteacher and were both active community members. As a teenager, Gardner participated in seminars and training sessions at the Penn Center. Later he attended an NAACP Youth Council Seminar where he met Vernon Jordan. Gardner moved to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Morehouse College, where he continued his involvement with the civil rights movement. He graduated in 1968 and went to work in corporate America. In the interview, he reflects on his experiences and the value of history lessons in the present days. Gardner was a historical interpreter at McLeod Plantation and Historic Site on James Island in Charleston, South Carolina.
Joseph Kelly (b. 1962) describes his experience growing up in an Irish American family living in New Jersey and Texas. The only background information he knows of regarding his family is that his paternal great-grandfather was from Roscommon, and that he came over to New York City in the late 1890?s. Both of his parents grew up in Irish neighborhoods in the Bronx and were the first generation in the family to go to college. The family moved from New Jersey to Houston in the late seventies, and he notes that there was not a real sense of Irish ethnicity in Houston, as compared to what it was in the Northeast. He also notes that the sense of Irish culture, and celebration of Irishness, is growing in Charleston as a result of the public outreach he has done as Director of the Irish and Irish American Studies program at CofC.
Thomas Horan describes his experience growing up in an Irish American family in Boston. The paternal side of his family comes from County Galway, his paternal grandmother having come to the United States when she was sixteen, before Irish independence. His maternal grandmother married a man of Scotch-Irish descent. He was raised in the Catholic Church, as a result of what he refers to as an insistence on ?middle-class respectability,? and his family was close with some of the priests from the area, however, he is no longer an active participant in the Church. Though living in an area with a lot of Irish meant that the family didn?t experience any particularly significant discrimination, there was a sense of wanting to assimilate and move up into the middle class. He moved to the South in 1999, first to attend graduate school at Chapel Hill, and then to Charleston. He states that, in terms of anti-Irish or anti-Catholic sentiment in the South, there seems to be more continuity in population here than in northern cities, which perhaps makes things harder for new ethnic populations to integrate.
Anne Owens speaks about her experience growing up Irish American, having Irish ancestors on both sides of her family. She spent her childhood in California but moved to Charleston after her mother remarried. Her maternal grandmother?s family came from Anglo-Irish roots in County Offlay in the 1860?s, entering the U.S. in Boston and making their way to Michigan. Her paternal grandmother?s family was from County Fermanagh and came to the U.S. in the early 1800?s, through Georgetown, South Carolina, and eventually settled in Cheraw. It is through this side of the family that Anne is related to Patrick Lynch, who became Bishop of Charleston in 1855. Her great-great grandfather, James Thomas Lynch, married a woman from the Pinckney family, so Anne has deep family roots here in Charleston, as well as in Colleton County, where her great-great grandparents owned the Ashepoo Plantation. However, Anne also has a familial connection with her stepfather?s family, who are native Charlestonians, as her research has led her to discover that her biological father and her stepfather are in fact cousins, due to their shared Charleston roots. She feels a deep connection with the Shannon River area in Ireland, where her maternal ancestors had lived for centuries as landed gentry. Though she sees ethnic identity becoming less prominent as the years go on, she likes ?seeing America as an amalgamation of many, many people.?
William McCann speaks about his experience growing up as part of an Irish American and Italian American family in New York. While his great-great grandparents came to the United States from Longford and Wicklow in the 1850?s and took up blue-collar jobs, the family has little knowledge of family stories or memories from that time, as William?s paternal grandfather passed away when his father was in his teens. Because he had more contact with older relatives from his maternal, Italian, side during childhood, the majority of William?s experience of Irishness has been through relationships with his friends in New York, some who have parents that are native Irish. He feels that Irish identity is less prominent in the South, that there is less of a culture built around Irishness.
Michaela Henderson talks about her experience growing up in an Irish American family in Connecticut. Her great-grandmother came over from Valentia Island in the late 1800?s/early 1900?s and the family settled in the New Haven area. Her family relocated to Charleston her freshman year of high school and has lived in the area since then. While her family was very involved in an Irish organization in Connecticut, she feels that there is less of a centralized Irish American presence in Charleston, and that claiming a Southern identity seems more important here than claiming a specific ethnic background, such as Irish. However, she is hopeful that the situation seems to be changing, with more emphasis on ways to celebrate Irish heritage here in Charleston.
James Bouknight, MD, PhD (pronouns: He/His), white psychiatrist, speaks of growing up, family life, education and his personal and professional life. Born into a "close and loving family" in rural South Carolina, he grew up on a farm worked by others, his parents being teachers, and his maternal grandparents being a very supportive presence. He always knew he "wasn't like other kids", wasn't athletic, but excelled in school, attending Bishopville High School, as it was being integrated, calling off the junior senior. Aware of a flamboyant gay youth at school, and a gay man who was available for sex in Bishopville, Bouknight did not identify with them and was glad to start dating women when he attended Wofford, the fourth generation of his family to do so. Attending graduate school at Duke University was not a positive experience so Bouknight switched to the University of South Carolina where he had his first relationship with a man and earned his PhD in economics. He considers that relationship a "bad influence" since the man was closeted and engaged to be married. Bouknight then taught at Converse College, in an era when dating between professors and students was encouraged; he married the president of the student body, and their married life began well. He moved into the private sector and eventually became Chair of the Department of Business and Economics at Columbia College and his wife began law school. With time on his hands, Bouknight, keeping fit, began attending the YMCA in Columbia, SC, discovering it had an active gay scene, and his wife, learning of an affair he had with a man, demanded a divorce. It was a difficult time, leading to depression and financial straits. Finding a niche with happy, well-adjusted gay men in Columbia was a positive experience, and Bouknight began a relationship with Bob Stutts, another professor at Columbia College. At age thirty-five, he decided to enter medical school, realizing that the poor medical care his mother had received had led to her death. He attended the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, was out, and was friends with many other gay medical students. He did his residency in psychiatry at the Department of Mental Health in Columbia, SC, founding and running an AIDS support group; he eventually worked for a hospital and had a private practice, including many LGBTQ patients. When his relationship with Bob Stutts ended, he met Ramsey Still, whom he married in Maryland in 2013. He became board certified in geriatric psychiatry, one of the first in the state, and now, semi-retired, lives with his husband in Charleston, SC. At the end of the interview, Bouknight speaks of the illness and eventual death of his medical school friend, Olin Jolley, MD, of AIDS, and how those who are ill and dying are often put in the unfair position of taking care of those who visit them.
Terri Wolff Kaufman, in the first of two back-to-back interviews, describes her family tree with a focus on her paternal grandparents. Henry Wolff, a Polish-German immigrant, opened the Henry Wolff Department Store in Allendale, South Carolina, in 1901. He married Rachel "Ray" Pearlstine, daughter of Rebecca Tobish and Louis Pearlstine, of Branchville, South Carolina, and they raised their children, Cecile, Sura, and the interviewee's father, Louis Michael Wolff in Allendale. When Henry, who was much older than Rachel, died in 1914, Rachel took over the business and adopted the name "Ray" after their regular vendors declared, "We don't do business with women." Sura's husband, Sam Wengrow, assumed control of the store upon Ray's death in 1936. Terri, born in 1955 in Columbia, South Carolina, shares her memories of visiting the store as a young child and refers, during the interview, to photographs taken when her grandfather was the proprietor. Louis Wolff married Elsie Benenson in 1952. Elsie, the interviewee's mother, hailed from Atmore, Alabama, near Mobile. Terri discusses her father's education and career as an architect. He received his undergraduate degree from Clemson College in 1931 and his architectural degree from the University of Pennsylvania two years later. Considered a modernist, Louis became a principal in the firm Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff in 1946. An example of his work is the former Tree of Life Synagogue at 2701 Heyward Street in Columbia, South Carolina, completed in 1952. Terri briefly mentions other buildings in Columbia that the firm designed and her father's various jobs early in his career, including his stint in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Europe during World War II. See Mss. 1035-565 for Terri's second interview and Mss. 1035-212 for an interview with Terri's aunt Sura Wolff Wengrow. For a related collection, see the Wolff family papers, Mss. 1045.
Terri Wolff Kaufman, in this second of two interviews, talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, where she was born in 1955 to Elsie Benenson and Louis Wolff. Louis, an architect, designed the large modern house in which Terri and her younger siblings, Frances, Michael, and Bruce, were raised. Terri notes instances of antisemitism that she experienced as a child and tells the story of how her father and his business partners at Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff handled discriminatory treatment directed at Louis by the Summit Club in Columbia. Louis's awareness of prejudice against Jews and African Americans in Columbia was evident when he discouraged Terri from meeting a black friend out in public, knowing that the association would make life more difficult for Terri and the family. The interviewee shares stories about her siblings, describes her parents' social life and civic activities, and recalls the African Americans who worked for her family in their home. The Wolffs belonged to Columbia's Reform congregation, Tree of Life, and observed the Sabbath by lighting candles on Friday nights before going to services. While they did not keep kosher, Louis insisted that a couple of food restrictions be followed. Terri was studying to be an actor in New York when her father died suddenly. She ended up earning a graduate degree in media arts and working in the television industry in Los Angeles. Terri and her ex-husband, Jack Kaufman, raised their son, Alex, in the Jewish tradition in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The interviewee finds it more "comfortable" living as a Jew in large northern cities as compared with the South, where Judaism is not as familiar or well understood. However, she thinks Jews who live in places with smaller Jewish populations are more likely to get involved in Jewish organizations as a way to connect with other Jews, as she has since her recent move to the Charleston area. Terri is married to a non-Jewish man, Vernon Dunning, and they are members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina. See Mss. 1035-564 for Terri's first interview and Mss. 1035-212 for an interview with Terri's aunt Sura Wolff Wengrow. For a related collection, see the Wolff family papers, Mss. 1045.
Leah Feinberg Chase was born in 1938 in West Point, Georgia, the eldest of three girls of Norma Beryl Goldstein and Morris Feinberg. In this interview, she talks about growing up in the small Georgia town bordering Alabama, roughly eighty miles southwest of Atlanta, then home to West Point Manufacturing Company. Her father opened a shoe repair business in West Point, later switching to ladies' and children's ready-to-wear clothing. Leah was the only Jewish student when she was attending the public schools in town. She says she "never experienced outright antisemitism in West Point," and she had many friends. "We were very cliquish." Yet, she notes "I always felt I was different," pointing out that she spent her weekends doing very different activities than her Christian friends. She and her sisters, Helen and Ina, attended Sunday school in Columbus, Georgia, where her paternal grandparents, Jake and Ida Feinberg, lived. Other weekends she traveled to youth group functions, such as Young Judaea conventions. Leah married Philip Chase of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1957. For a year before their marriage, she studied journalism at the University of Georgia, while Philip finished his last year in college at The Citadel. They raised four children?Stephen, David, Benjamin, and Freda?in Charleston. Leah describes her career in journalism at Channel 5, WCSC-TV; Custom Video; and Charleston Jewish Federation, where she edited the Federation's newspaper, Charleston Jewish Journal, which won national awards at the General Assembly of Council of Jewish Federations. The Journal also attracted unwanted attention during her tenure at the paper. She received death threats, including a bomb threat to Chase Furniture, the family business, prompting police protection. Leah gives an overview of the local civic organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, that she has belonged to and served over the past decades, in particular the Foreign Affairs Forum. She makes note of her advocacy for and regular visits to Israel. Thirty years prior to the interview, Leah made a career change and became a travel agent. Other topics discussed include how observant Leah is of Jewish traditions compared with her parents, and an antisemitic incident that occurred when she applied for a job at the Evening Post/News and Courier in the late 1950s/early '60s. The transcript contains corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
Alan Banov, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, tells the story of his great-grandfather Alexander Banov (Banovich), who was born in a Polish town called Kopcheve, modern-day Kapciamiestis, Lithuania, and lived in Nemnovo in what is today Belarus. Alexander, who immigrated to the United States in 1889, came to Charleston, where his brother Isaac Wolfe Banov had settled. Daughter Rebecca followed her father first, then came son Cassell, and finally, Alexander's wife, Sonia Danilovich, and their remaining children, Rachel, David, and Leizer, in 1895. Relying on information from his great-uncle David Banov's oral history, Alan recounts living conditions in Nemnovo, and the trip from Russia to Charleston, in particular, a segment of David and Leizer's journey. Because Russian border guards were likely to prevent young males from leaving the empire, the brothers, just twelve and seven years old, separated from Sonia and Rachel, and a hired smuggler led them into Germany where they were reunited with their mother and sister. Alan talks about Alexander's stores in Charleston, Georgetown, and Red Top, South Carolina. The interviewee's grandfather, Leizer, who assumed the name Leon, was in the first confirmation class at Brith Sholom, the Orthodox synagogue in Charleston. Leon became a pharmacist and opened apothecary shops at 442 and 492 King Street before earning his degree in medicine at the Medical College of South Carolina. Dr. Leon Banov, Sr., went to work for the city and county health departments and, after becoming director, oversaw the merger of the two entities. Alan discusses some of his grandfather's accomplishments as a public health director. Leon married Minnie Monash, whose father, Morris, owned Uncle Morris's Pawnshop in Charleston. Alan's father, Leon Banov, Jr., the eldest of three, became a doctor like his father and married Rita Landesman from Morris Plains, New Jersey. They raised Alan and his younger sister, Jane Banov Bergen, in Charleston. Alan describes his experiences at Charleston Day School and Gaud School for Boys. In 1967, after attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he began law school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. To get a draft deferment during the Vietnam War, he took education courses and signed up to teach school. He was assigned to Abram Simon Elementary School in D.C., where he taught sixth grade for three years while earning his law degree. Alan recalls his early career as a lawyer working first for the National Labor Relations Board, and then the law firm Donald M. Murtha & Associates. He originally intended to work in labor law, but switched to employment law. He explains why that trajectory changed and talks about his work as an employment lawyer and, more recently, a mediator. Alan married Marla Needel in 1969. They raised two daughters, Jessica and Rachel, before divorcing in 2001. His partner, Sandi Blau Cave, whom he met in 2002, was present during the interview. The transcript includes comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing. For related materials in Special Collections, Addlestone Library, see the Banov family papers, Mss 1025; the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss 1039; and interviews with Leon Banov, Jr., Mss. 1035-240; Abel Banov, Mss. 1035-060; and Edna Ginsberg Banov, Mss. 1035-045.
Thalia Orozco (b.1994) was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Her parents are from Michoacán, Mexico, and they came to the USA as agricultural migrant workers. In the nineties, they settled down in Wadmalaw Island, SC. Orozco attended Rural Mission, Frierson Elementary, Angel Oak Elementary, and graduated from high school at Charleston Collegiate. In the interview, she remembers her childhood and teen years and explains the challenges of growing up in the Sea Islands as a first-generation American- born citizen. She reflects on race relationships, belonging and exclusion, representation, and the barriers to political engagement. Thalia Orozco (b.1994) nació en Charleston, SC. Sus padres, originarios del estado de Michoacán, México, llegaron a los Estados Unidos como trabajadores agrícolas migrantes. En los años noventa se establecieron en Wadmalaw Island, SC. Orozco aprendió sus primeras letras con el programa Head Start en Rural Mission. Luego fue estudiante de las escuelas Frierson Elementary y Angel Oak Elementary y completo sus estudios en la escuela media y preparatoria en Charleston Collegiate. En la entrevista recuerda su infancia y adolescencia y explica los desafíos de crecer en el Lowcountry como ciudadana de primera generación nacida en Estados Unidos. Reflexiona acerca de las tensiones raciales y las cuestiones de pertenencia y exclusión que ha experimentado como así también acerca de las barreras y desafíos para la representación y participación política.
Blanche McCrary Boyd (pronouns: she/her/hers) describes the events that lead to her becoming an acclaimed novelist and professor at Connecticut College. Born in Charleston, SC in 1945 to working class parents, she lost her father at age 15, one of the crucial events of her life. Living with family on a 400-acre plantation near Rantowles, SC, she became “radicalized” by events seen on television, realizing, unlike other members of her family, that she lived in a racist society, finding a “sense of horror” and a “sense of beauty” in the South. She attended Duke University and met Dean Boyd, the man she married, while attending Harvard University summer school. Boyd credits her husband for helping her mature and encouraging her writing once she decided upon that as a goal. Moving to California, Boyd began writing seriously at Pomona College, and won a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University. Her marriage unraveled, as she discovered feminism, and her attraction to women, bringing her to a “different reality.” She had starting drinking alcohol soon after her father’s death and she spent over a decade abusing it and drugs as she moved to New York and became a “radical lesbian.” She helped set type for the classic novel Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, and founded Sagaris, an “institute for feminist thought,” associating with leading feminists, including accused bomber Patricia Swinton. She published essays, mostly about the South, in The Village Voice, learned how to “seize” her authority, and published books on popular musicians under the name Vivian Claire. She returned to Charleston, continuing writing and publishing novels, becoming sober in 1981. She discusses how a teenage car wreck involving a Black man’s death became the “fulcrum of my understanding of life” and how it serves as a metaphor for America as she wonders “what white people who are anti-racist are going to do about white supremacy.” She and her wife Leslie are the mothers of twins, James and Julia, and Boyd reflects on parenting, Leslie’s life-threatening illnesses, and how her novel Tomb of the Unknown Racist has capped her fiction writing career. As retirement from Connecticut College looms, she assesses her accomplishments, notes satisfactions, and the many surprising turns her life took.
Michael Lott (pronouns: He/Him/His). In the first of two oral history interviews, Michael Lott discusses his early years, his family, coming out, training and practice as a psychiatrist, his personal and professional life in New York City in the era of AIDS, and his health and retirement. Born in Norfolk, VA, he grew up in the Charleston, SC area on James Island, closely connected to his mother and grandfather, but alienated from his father, whom he was told was his stepfather until he was eight. Deeply religious, he would try “to pray the gay away” after various youthful sexual encounters, even as he mentions religious figures who were gay. He began college at Furman and finished at the College of Charleston, experiencing and describing closeted gay life on campus, in bars, like the Garden and Gun Club, and the city. Engaged briefly, he broke that off and was condemned for his sexual orientation by his Campus Crusade for Christ friends. His own near-death and the death of his brother prompted him to begin living an authentic life as he began his studies at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 1980. He briefly mentions being on a plane hijacked to Cuba along with a gay CIA agent, and speaks more fully of homophobia at MUSC aimed at him and at an early AIDS patient at Charleston County Hospital. Serving on national medical school boards and committees, he engaged in gay and lesbian related causes, continuing his education in San Francisco (under a doctor who was a part of the Dan White murder trial) and did his residency in New York City, as it experienced the crises of AIDS, crack, and homelessness. Moving there in 1985 as “a farm boy from South Carolina” he eventually ran “with the Saint [disco] crowd”, partied with “beautiful people” on Fire Island and eventually became known as “the Tommy Tune of Death” for helping choreograph the exits of many friends lost to AIDS. He taught at New York University before “selling out” to work for drug companies, eventually going on disability due to his own HIV status. A slow progressor, diagnosed in 1989, he did not go on medications until 2016. Lott moved to Asheville, NC in 2019 and was settling in when the COVID-19 pandemic began. He speaks favorably of the city’s liberal attitudes and ends speaking about the sadness of all his losses but his happiness that younger LGBTQ people have not had to endure experiences similar to his.
Douglas Seymour (pronouns: He/Him/His) relates the story of his abusive childhood, growing up and attending school and college in Charleston, SC, his life as an adult, and his work as a peer navigator for people with HIV, often speaking forcefully on the corrosive impact of homophobia. He was beaten by his father for not liking sports and cars, and, although he adored his mother, she told him “being gay was worse than being a child molester and a child murderer.” He always knew he was attracted to men, and if “there hadn’t been the hitch of being told it was wrong...it would have been a natural flow into adulthood.” He graduated First Baptist High School, and due to his father’s demands, attended the Citadel, terrified that he would be picked on for being gay. There, however, he found acceptance among upperclassmen for his knowledge of pop music and found other gay cadets. Having started frequenting the bar Basin Street South as an underage teen, he began going to the King Street Garden and Gun Club, and Seymour recalls his times there and that era of the late 1970s and early 1980s as one of the happiest periods of his life. After college, he worked as a journalist in Summerville, SC, and he describes the cliquish nature of Charleston gay life at the time. His lack of self-esteem, he says, prompted his alcoholism and his settling into personal relationships that were often abusive. He lived in Washington, DC, from 1982 to 1991 and returned to Charleston with a diagnosis of AIDS, told by physicians to prepare to die. After living with his parents, and coming out to them, he moved into his own apartment and received health care from his physician and Lowcountry AIDS Services. Facing health crises, he quit drinking and quit smoking, hired a personal trainer and was in the best shape of his life in his fifties. He began to work for the local Ryan White program as a peer navigator for people newly diagnosed or those long-term survivors like himself. Seymour describes some of the social support programs he set up and notes the quandary of “a whole bunch of us gay men...[with] no career, no retirement...because we weren’t supposed to be here, and now we’re older, we’re isolated...[and] it kind of feels like nobody wants you.” The interview ends with reflections on the lack of a variety of specific spaces for LGBTQ people and how Charleston has changed over the years.
In his second oral history, Michael Lott (pronouns: He/Him/His) adds some information to fill out his first interview. He speaks of an early closeted boyfriend from Goose Creek, SC who killed himself probably due to his homosexuality, tells of his medical training in Charleston, SC where he encountered homophobia, and in New York City where many of his peers and professors were gay. He mentions knowing AIDS activist and author Larry Kramer, noting how Kramer transposed real events into his play The Normal Heart; he also discusses his friendship and admiration for gay activist and scholar Vito Russo. He describes his participation with the Gay Men’s Health Crisis AIDS fund-raising parties at the Pines on Fire Island, recalls professors who helped him at the College of Charleston, speaks of student and fraternity life there, and mentions future College President Glenn McConnell, as well as his experience with friends and patients during the AIDS crisis in New York.
Eric Sullivan (Pronouns: He/Him/His) describes growing up Easton, Maryland, moving to Charleston, SC to attend the College of Charleston, his graduate school training in Los Angeles, CA and his work as an LGBTQ therapist. One of five siblings, Sullivan knew he was different at "a pretty young age," and had a sense that he was gay before fully understanding what that meant. He "never got any messages growing up?about ? what the LGBTQ community was," but did have access to television programs such as Will and Grace and Queer as Folk. Coming out first to a friend, and then to his mother, he came out in "a public declarative statement" as part of a high school group project studying conversion therapy, realizing he could not just remain "a neutral party." He had experienced some negative responses before coming out, but very little afterwards. Sullivan explains his decision to attend the College of Charleston where he had his "first glimpse into gay culture" at a gay straight alliance meeting and at the gay bar Patrick's, and later Pantheon, both of which he describes. He notes with satisfaction how LGBTQ visibility has increased on campus since his years in school and recounts how a chance encounter working as waiter led him to graduate school in Los Angeles in the first LGBTQ counseling program in the country. He worked with homeless LGBTQ youth, adapted to the life there, was licensed and eventually moved back to Charleston, where, after some trepidation, he opened a practice specifically targeting LGBTQ clients. Responding to queries from people throughout the state seeking his services, he developed a successful on-line video practice before the COVID 19 pandemic. The interview concludes with Sullivan discussing the impacts of isolation, religion, and the lack of visibility on South Carolina's LGBTQ community, as well as other mental health issues.
Jack Sewell (pronouns: He/Him) speaks mostly of his life in Charleston, the various businesses in which he was engaged, and gay life, characters, and bars in the city. Born as a twin in Oklahoma, he grew up in Texas, was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist household and joined the Navy, which brought him to Charleston in 1966. While mostly closeted, to stay in the service, Sewell nevertheless visited many gay clubs, despite their being banned by the Shore Patrol, and he mentions the Navy investigating sailors for homosexual activities. In reply to questions, he names and describes many of the bars in town including The Wagon Wheel, The Ocean Bar and Grill, Pat's Lounge, the Stardust Lounge, the Bat Room, and "the Tiltin' Hilton" on Folly Beach, among others, including a gay bar he and his partner tried to open on Market Street, but which failed due to the curfew imposed by martial law during the 1969 Hospital Worker's strike. He also describes homophobia, vice squad raids, pay offs, cruising on the Battery and makes mention of the YMCA and bus station and other bathrooms. Out of the Navy, he first had odd jobs, including working as a debt collector, which led to visiting Dawn Langley Simmons. He and his partner began working as carpenters, building cabinetry for many businesses, bringing them in contact with many Jewish merchants and building owners whom he describes. The couple first opened "head" shops named A Different World, catering to a hippy clientele, in Charleston and Orangeburg and later opened a series of restaurants called The Hungry Lion in a variety of locations in the city, with the main location being near the College of Charleston on George Street. Sewell, who eventually bought out his partner, worked long days, often as the chief cook, as well doing numerous other tasks, eventually commuting from McClellanville, SC to where he retired in 2014. In the course of the interview he mentions? the Davis building, site of the Hungry Lion and the owners, a Jewish family in London, Jules Garvin, Bobby Tucker, Clifton Harris, Jr., whose murder on the Battery in 2006 is still unsolved, Joe Trott and other colorful gay characters. He also explains the coded vocabulary he and his friends used, mentions later bars such as the Garden and Gun Club, Les Jardins, and working at the Arcade Club and the restaurant Spanky's associated with it. He ends speaking of life in McClellanville and the man who means so much to him, Dewey Williams, a partner of 39 years, whom he married at the Lincoln Memorial in 2010.?
Stephen Gilroy talks about his experience growing up in an Irish American family in New York City and New Jersey. His grandparents came from County Leitrim, County Longford, County Cork, and County Waterford from the mid-1800?s to the very early 1900?s. All of his grandparents were in the working-class, as cabinet makers, butchers, dock-workers, and other blue-collar jobs. There wasn?t much focus on Irishness in his family while he was growing up, though he did have a strong relationship with an uncle who told him about all of the Irish families in the area. He?s been to Ireland with his family and has been to the church in County Leitrim where his paternal grandparents are from. He feels a connection with Ireland, which he describes as a ?magical? place. He and his wife moved to Charleston recently to be near their daughter, and he states that there is less of an emphasis on ethnic identity in Charleston, and more emphasis on a general Southern identity.
Erica Cokley was born in 1980 in Columbia, South Carolina. She graduated from Brookland-Cayce High School in 1998 and later studied at Strayer University in Charleston, where she earned an associate degree in business management. In the interview, she discusses how her childhood, her experiences at school, and the challenges she faces as a single mother intersect with her determination to participate in the political arena. Cokley remembers joining Fight for $15 when she was a Taco Bell employee, reflecting on her involvement in community issues and her determination to improve children’s living conditions and opportunities to succeed. In 2019, she formed Voices United, a non-profit organization. In 2020, she organized the Million Womxn’s March in North Charleston and was elected as a Charleston School District board member. Cokley discusses how the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd brought new urgency to working to stop racial injustices.
Journalist and activist Juan Fernando Soto Martínez (b.1994) was born in the city of San Pedro de las Colonias, Coahuila, Mexico but soon his family moved to Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. When he was seven years old, his parents decided to immigrate to the United States and settled down on Johns Island, South Carolina. From an early age, he excelled as a student, and a couple from the Catholic community provided financial support to further his education. He attended Charleston Collegiate, a private school on Johns Island and then Spring Hill College in Alabama where he earned a Bachelor in Journalism. After completing his degree, Soto Martinez returned to Charleston and founded Recursos Estatales (State Resources), an information service for the local Spanish-speaking community. In the interview, Soto Martínez reflects on his DACA status, the complexities of growing up in a small community, his love for journalism and his activism. He affirms his right to live his life on his terms and to pursue his dreams as a Latino gay man. El periodista y activista Juan Fernando Soto Martínez (1994) nació en la ciudad de San Pedro de las Colonias, Coahuila, México, pero pronto su familia se mudó a Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Cuando tenía siete años sus padres decidieron emigrar a Estados Unidos y se radicaron en Johns Island, Carolina del Sur. Desde pequeño se destacó como estudiante y un matrimonio de la comunidad católica lo ayudó económicamente para que pudiera estudiar en la escuela privada de Johns Island, Charleston Collegiate y posteriormente en Spring Hill College en Alabama donde obtuvo el título de Bachelor en Periodismo. Después de completar sus estudios regresó a Charleston y fundó Recursos Estatales, un emprendimiento periodístico que sirve a la comunidad hispanohablante local. En la entrevista, Soto Martínez reflexiona sobre su situación de joven DACA, las complejidades de crecer en una comunidad pequeña, su amor por el periodismo y su activismo. Afirma su derecho a vivir su vida en sus propios términos y a perseguir sus sueños como joven latino y gay.
Miriam Brotman Gordin was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1933, the only child of immigrants Charlotte Saltz (Galicia, Austria-Hungary) and Ralph Brotman (Polish Russia). Miriam and her daughter Rachel Barnett, who is an interviewer, share their family history. Miriam describes growing up in Charleston where Charlotte and Ralph owned a dry goods store on King Street near Read Brothers, at the corner of Spring. Ralph was in poor health much of the time, so Charlotte was the family's primary breadwinner. Ralph died when Miriam was twelve. The interviewee recalls spending Sundays at wholesalers' stores on Meeting Street while her mother negotiated with the owners, and she remembers other merchants and families they knew along King Street. Miriam tells a number of stories that offer a glimpse of daily life for Jewish merchants in uptown Charleston in the 1930s-'50s. The Brotmans were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues, where Miriam was confirmed with two other girls when she was about fifteen. Miriam notes that "Mama was a casual Orthodox. She did what she could. She would have moments of being Orthodox, really religious, and then she would back away." Miriam graduated from the College of Charleston in 1955 and, that same year, married David Gordin, who grew up in Summerton, South Carolina, a small farming community about eighty miles north of Charleston. David had earned his pharmacy degree and returned to his hometown and opened a drugstore. His father, Morris Gordin, ran a general store there. Miriam and David raised their four children, Rachel, Debbie, Danny, and Stephen, in Summerton, and the family attended Temple Sinai in Sumter. Miriam and Rachel describe a "split" in the Sumter congregation, which they remember as "very Reform." Many members did not want to observe such practices as wearing yarmulkes or praying in Hebrew, nor did they want others to do so. Miriam reports that Summerton, home of Briggs v. Elliott, had a Citizens' Council, "which was very intimidating." The Gordins kept their children in the public schools until 1970, when full integration was enforced. Rachel and Miriam discuss the decision to enroll Rachel and her siblings in private school. Miriam notes that David felt they didn't have a choice. "He didn't want his children to be an experiment in a public school." Rachel argues that the white flight to the private academies was "pure racism," but not in her parents' case. "Daddy was really caught in a conundrum. You couldn't be the only four white kids. It was bad enough being the only four Jewish kids." Other topics covered in this interview include Debbie's illness and death at age thirty; funeral and burial customs; Jewish-gentile relations in Summerton; and the importance of Jewish identity.
Harlan Greene, one of four children of Regina and Sam Greene, talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, with a focus on the effects his parents’ experiences as Holocaust survivors had on him and his siblings. Regina and Sam married in their native Poland in June 1939 and, sometime after the Nazis invaded Poland, were picked up by Russian invaders and taken to Siberian work camps. In 1943 the Greenes joined thousands of Jewish refugees in Uzbekistan to wait out the war. They immigrated in 1948 to Charleston, where Regina had relatives. Harlan recalls that his parents’ wartime accounts were “very contradictory,” and he speculates as to the reasons. At his prompting, his mother began telling him stories in bits and pieces when he was a young teen. Regina was not for memorializing just one holocaust or telling her story publicly, whereas, later in life, Sam became involved in Holocaust organizations and recorded his life story. Harlan describes his parents’ marriage, their home life while he was growing up, and his childhood, which he calls “claustrophobic.” He believes that his parents’ stories are part of his and his siblings’ stories—"their trajectory is my trajectory”—and that certain familial traits have filtered down to his nieces in the next generation. Harlan notes that he has a “run-away work ethic. I can see it in many of my siblings. If we’re enjoying ourselves, we kind of feel guilty.” He comments briefly on Charleston society’s social strictures and how he has embraced living outside its confines, being gay and Jewish. “Growing up in Charleston, you weren’t supposed to be Jewish. You weren’t supposed to be gay. Those were social strikes against you. . . I like whatever makes me different.” This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Carmen Rigonan (b. 1948) was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico and raised by her grandmother in a large, poor family. Her parents died when she was young, and her aunts left to work in the agricultural fields of New York. She has fond childhood memories of playing in the riverbanks and the sugar cane fields. As a child, she contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalized for four years. In 1963, she moved to Corpus Christi, Texas where her sister and brother-in-law, a military officer, resided. Upon arriving, she experienced a cultural shock related to the national events and the racial dynamics of her new community. She dropped out of school and got a job at the military base in the Head Start program. There, she met her husband, a Vietnam War veteran of Filipino origin with whom she had two daughters. The family moved to several times to different states, including Puerto Rico, and settled permanently in Goose Creek, South Carolina in 1978. It was in the Lowcountry where Rigonan reconnected with her Puerto Rican roots. Later with a group of friends, she founded a non-profit organization called Tri-county Hispanic Association to promote community and cultural activities. In the interview, Rigonan reflects on the construction of her Puerto Rican identity and talks about the racism and classism that she has faced throughout her life. She takes pride in her multicultural family. Carmen Rigonan (1948) nació en Caguas Puerto Rico y creció junto a su abuela en una familia numerosa y pobre. Sus padres fallecieron cuando era pequeña y sus tías se marcharon a trabajar en los campos agrícolas en Nueva York. Sus recuerdos de infancia están asociados al rio y a los cañaverales de azúcar en los que jugaba. Siendo niña contrajo tuberculosis, “la plaga blanca” y tuvo que ser hospitalizada por cuatro años. En 1963, llegó a Corpus Christi, Texas donde residían su hermana y su cuñado que era militar. Allí sufrió un choque cultural marcado por los acontecimientos nacionales, pero también por las dinámicas raciales de su comunidad. No quiso estar en la escuela y consiguió trabajo en la base militar en el programa Head Start. Trabajando conoció a su marido, un veterano de la guerra de Vietnam de origen filipino con el que tuvo dos hijas. La familia vivió en varios estados, incluido Puerto Rico y se radicó definitivamente en Goose Creek, Carolina del Sur en el año 1978. Fue en el Lowcountry que Rigonan reconectó con sus raíces puertorriqueñas y junto a un grupo de amigos fundó una organización sin fines de lucro llamada Tri-county Hispanic Association, que tenía como objetivo promover actividades comunitarias y culturales. En la entrevista, Rigonan reflexiona acerca de la construcción de su identidad puertorriqueña, habla del racismo y clasismo que ha enfrentado a lo largo de su vida y se enorgullece de su familia multicultural.
James Finnegan discusses his family history and his experiences as an Irish American in Charleston. James? great-great-great-grandfather traveled to South Carolina from County Meath around the late 1840?s. He discusses his deep family history in Charleston, as well as his involvement in the Irish community in Charleston and various events such as the Charleston St. Patrick?s Day parade.
Sarah Davis discusses her experiences as an Irish American growing up in the Northeast. She admits that it is difficult to pinpoint her experience with Irishness, as her family background is made up of several different backgrounds, but states that she connects most with the community and hospitality aspects of Irishness. She also offers some comments on perceptions of Irish American vs Irish identities, and on the changing political and social environment in Ireland today.
Barbara Nicodemus (pronouns: She/Hers), white retired school teacher, discusses her life, which she describes as "pretty boring," "pretty golden," and one lived under a "miracle cloud." Growing up in a close-knit, loving and accepting Catholic family in Indianapolis, IN, she accompanied her parents to marches and rallies in Chicago as a youngster. She attended Catholic schools (where she had to get permission to take physics instead of home economics), Ball State University, and Purdue, majoring in science education and later in biochemistry, when it was unusual for women to do so. Involved with another woman academician, she helped organize and run a women's center, "really a lesbian" center, and never encountered any sort of pushback there for her views or actions. She gave up working at Eli Lilly and Company, not agreeing with their philosophy, and moved with partner to various other universities, eventually moving to Clemson, SC. Starting a new career, Nicodemus became a high school teacher and had her education loans forgiven by teaching in the rural area of Walhalla, South Carolina. There, she was a "breath of fresh air," being out, when so many people were not. She continued to live under that "miracle cloud" of never facing any prejudice against her for being a lesbian, which she attributes to her personally being "passable" in her looks, and due to the Southern pattern of behavior of not being confrontational. After a year-and-a-half of attempts at artificial insemination, she gave birth to twin girls, whom she and her partner raised. While their relationship ended, the women remained close both emotionally and geographically. Nicodemus started and ran the "Upstate Women's Community" for lesbians for about ten years, putting on events to raise funds to help publish a newsletter. Teaching school, she was a role model for some students and staff and she expressed her disapproval once when an older friend dated a student. Retiring, she moved to Charleston with her wife, where she is involved with the Charleston Social Club, has joined book clubs (one specifically for lesbians), and volunteers to work with senior dementia patients. In speaking on LGBTQ topics, she notes her belief that gay men, like her brother, who also has children, might face more discrimination that gay women do; she describes her long-standing attendance at a women's festival, ponders its stand as terfs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, not opening the festival to trans women, and questions her own thoughts on the topic. Being LGBTQ has just made her human, she feels, earlier noting that LGBTQ people often work harder than their straight peers, just to prove their worth. She ends the interview suggesting that while she has lived a life "in neutral," she has occasionally, when needed, shifted into "drive."
Interview of Jane P. de Butts (formerly known as Jane Hanahan), a direct descendant of General Pinckney and niece of Josephine Pinckney. In this interview, she discusses her and her first husband's families and the circumstances of their move from Richmond to 43 East Bay, where they lived and raised a family. She speaks about her daily life at 43 East Bay Street and Charleston in general: raising a family, socializing, recreation including summers at the Isle of Palms, Hurricane Hugo, and her association with Historic Charleston Foundation as a trustee and later as its first woman President. She discusses memorable HCF efforts such as the purchase and restoration of the Missroon House, acquisition of McLeod Plantation, and the Revolving Fund, and comments on how Charleston has changed over the years, specifically the changes brought on by tourism. She also speaks about each of her now grown children, one of whom (Anne), now lives in the George Summers House with her family.
Interview of Evangelyon H. Rainsford, also known as Vangie Rainsford. Ms. Rainsford has lived in Charleston her entire adult life. She recounts her experience purchasing her home on Chapel Street, which she fell in love with immediately. She rehabilitated the house and decorated the interior with antiques. Ms. Rainsford has been an active neighborhood leader and has been the neighborhood president of Mazyck Wraggborough for several decades. She discusses the creation of the Garden District in the neighborhood and the establishment of the triangle park on Chapel and Elizabeth Street, including where the fountain was found. The changing character of Charleston and the neighborhood were also discussed.
Lisa Collis Cohen, born in 1958 in Kingstree, South Carolina, is the elder of two daughters of Jennie Goldberg and Moses Collis, both natives of Charleston, South Carolina. Lisa discusses her grandparents, Rebecca Leah Kirshtein and I. M. Goldberg, whose families migrated from Kaluszyn, Poland, to Charleston. Lena Schiawitz and Meyer Collis, who emigrated from Bialystok in the early 1900s, owned a Jewish bakery at 165 King Street in Charleston, and Lena ran a kosher catering business. Lisa describes the bakery, which closed, she believes, sometime during World War II. Her father, Moses, began working as a young boy for Charleston plumber W. K. Prause, whose shop was across the street from the bakery. Ultimately, Moses became "the state's youngest licensed journeyman plumber at age sixteen." His sister Becky married Harry Schreiberg. Harry's brothers Morris and Nathan had a store in Lane, South Carolina, and they lived in Kingstree. Morris encouraged Moses to come to Kingstree, where there were no plumbers. With help from his sister Sadie, Moses pursued the opportunity and, by 1947, he was in business in the small town about seventy-five miles north of Charleston. Later he became a licensed mechanical contractor. Lisa talks about growing up in Kingstree where she joined her Christian friends in their religious activities and went to their camps. The Collises observed the Sabbath on Friday nights with a family meal and services at Temple Beth Or in Kingstree. Lisa recalls the other Jewish families that lived in Kingstree and surrounding small towns, who were members of Beth Or, which was founded in 1945. The congregation relied on rabbis from Charleston's Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El to preside over bar mitzvahs and recruited students from Jewish Theological Seminary for the High Holidays. Lisa recounts how the family kept kosher, adding that every summer her father made large quantities of kosher dill pickles. Lisa went to Jewish camp in the summers and was involved in the Temple Youth Group that met in Sumter. "My Judaism, for me, was a very natural thing." When she was young, Lisa's mother, Jennie, tried to keep Lisa and her sister, Rhonda, "almost shomer Shabbat." Moses didn't agree with that degree of observance and encouraged assimilation. "My father didn't want me to feel different." Lisa, who attended public schools through sixth grade, discusses why her parents sent her to a private academy when integration was enforced in South Carolina. Among the topics covered in this interview are the Collis connection to the Mazo family of Charleston and Lisa's memories of her aunts and uncles, including Davy Collis, his band, Buddy Shaw, and his music company, Carolina Instrument, competitor of Fox Music House. Note: transcript includes comments and corrections made by interviewee during proofing. See Mss 1035-550 for part two of this interview. For a related collection, see also the Collis family papers, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
In this second of a two-part interview, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg describes her career after graduating from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She first took a job as music director at WPTF radio in Raleigh, North Carolina. When she and her husband, Ira Rosenberg, moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1960s, she went to work at WKTM radio, owned by her cousin Ansley Cohen, selling advertising spots, and doing whatever else was needed. Anita notes that working at WKTM was exciting because it was FM, which "was coming into its own," and it was "Charleston's first rock station." After a few years, she went into "the advertising agency world" and was active in the local professional association, Advertising Federation of Charleston, and the national association, American Advertising Federation, which recognized her work with their Silver Medal Award. One of her clients was Pearlstine Distributors, who hired her to run its marketing and advertising department. Anita talks about other jobs she held and the various types of work she did in advertising. "Just every different avenue of this profession has been fun and interesting, and very rewarding to do." In Charleston, the interviewee has been involved in numerous Jewish and non-Jewish community organizations and events as part of her professional work and her personal commitment to giving back. She recounts how she met her husband, Ira, the son of Bessie Lipschutz and Alan Rosenberg. "Two different worlds met each other." Ira's parents, Orthodox Jews from New York, raised him in Richmond, Virginia. Anita grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, in a Reform temple. Anita and Ira's three children are David, Virginia, and Mindelle. Anita discusses how and why she and Ira were able to adopt Virginia in 1967 as an infant. The Rosenberg family belonged to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), Charleston's Reform synagogue. The interviewee talks about her children and grandchildren. Her son, David, and his wife, Marcie, are members of the relatively new Modern Orthodox Dor Tikvah in Charleston. Anita and Ira started keeping kosher years ago?something they did not do while raising their children?to accommodate family members who are kosher. Anita considers how practices have changed at KKBE: they have their first female rabbi and their first gay rabbi; the revised prayer books have English and Hebrew with transliterations and translations; the cantor's role has expanded and is more inclusive. She says, "Conservative and Reform are moving closer to each other in today's world," and adds "from a historical point of view, the ancestors were Sephardic Orthodox Jews who settled here. That's my beginnings. So I don't feel like this is so strange, it's just a part of who I am." Anita briefly covers a number of other topics, including KKBE's past rabbis; its present-day choir; how the influx of people from other states has changed the congregation; the current status of Charleston's Jewish congregations and how/why they get along so well; her opinion about the presence of Chabad in the area; Jewish-gentile relations; and her thoughts on the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center in her hometown of Sumter. In a postscript to this interview, Anita recalls Alfreda LaBoard of Johns Island, the African-American woman who "was our nursie" from the time the Rosenberg kids were small. "She raised my children. I could never have done all the things that I did in the community, as well as Ira and I both busy with our careers, if it hadn't been for Alfreda." Comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing have been added to the transcript. For part one of this interview, see Mss. 1035-554. For related interviews, see Anita's interviews with her husband Ira Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461, and with her son, David Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-175. Also see a 1995 interview with her mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, Mss. 1035-007.
Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, born in 1940, was raised in Sumter, South Carolina, the eldest of two children of Virginia Moise and Herbert A. Rosefield. Anita discusses her family history, noting that on her mother's side, their genealogy reaches back "to Luis de Torres, who sailed with Columbus and was probably the first Jew to set foot on the North American continent." The Harbys, another maternal line, arrived in North America in the 1700s. Her grandmother Anita Harby married Harmon DeLeon Moise, who changed his given name to Davis to avoid being confused with another Sumter lawyer of the same name. Davis Moise was part of a South Carolina legislative delegation that traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, to recruit industries willing to move south. Frank Louis Rosenfield, husband of Leah Rachel Kleiger and a hosiery manufacturer, took the opportunity and moved his factory and his family to Sumter, changing their name to Rosefield. Anita's father, Herbert, met her mother in Sumter's Reform synagogue, Temple Sinai. Herbert was the South Carolina vice president for Ezekiel & Weilman Company, a restaurant supply business headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Also a musician, Herbert served as Temple Sinai's cantor for fifty years. Anita talks about a few of her ancestors and their accomplishments, including Penina Moise and Rachel Lazarus, as well as relatives she knew, such as her aunt Nina Moise Solomons Phelps and her uncles Lucius Clifton Moise, Davis DeLeon Moise, and Marion Moise. Anita recalls that before Sunday school, Grandfather Rosefield treated her and her younger brother, Herbert Jr., to breakfast at Jim's Waffle Shop, owned by Jim Karvelas, a member of the Greek community in Sumter. Anita says in the interview, "My Jewish education was Classical Reform." She was confirmed and she belonged to Temple Sinai's youth group, Southeast Federation of Temple Youth, which was very active in South Carolina. Anita's father wanted her to get an education so she could support herself. Her parents expected her to work during the summers rather than be idle. Anita started working at twelve and, by fourteen, she "was on the air at WSSC in Sumter doing commercials, playing music back in the old days of being a DJ." The summer she was fifteen, she attended theater school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the following summer she worked for the university's radio and television stations. Anita briefly describes her involvement in the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, serving as an officer locally, regionally, and nationally. The interviewee concludes by observing that "Sumter was a totally socially integrated city." Her parents were involved in productions at the local theater; Anita went to a Roman Catholic kindergarten; young Jewish ladies were invited to make their society debut alongside their non-Jewish peers; and Jewish and Christian professionals went into business together. "We were so southern, and we were so Sephardic, we looked down our nose at anybody who came from off." Comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing have been added to the transcript. This is the first part of a two-part interview, conducted on the same day; see Mss. 1035-555 for part two. For related interviews, see Anita's interviews with her husband Ira Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461, and with her son, David Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-175. Also see an interview with her mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, Mss. 1035-007.
George Thomas Lamme (Pronouns: He/Him/His), discusses his early years in Nebraska, moving to New York City and Chicago, and then settling in Charleston, SC where he became involved in many LGBTQ related projects and businesses. Growing up gay and Catholic in Beemer, Nebraska, Lamme always knew he was different; engaging in cowboy and Indian games, he always played Big Ruby, "a bar girl". Attending a Lutheran college, he intended to be a priest, but eventually became a teacher in a Catholic school in his hometown instead. Pursuing some legal action against the school, he was threatened with being outed by the administration if he did not quit; it was recommended he move to New York City. There, he pursued his interest in theatre, working with H.M. Koutoukas and La Mama's avant gard theatre, among other things. Moving to Chicago, where he had worked in the box office of the Academy Festival Theatre, he met David Cardwell and Jeff Miller, who moved to Charleston, SC. In 1978, Lamme came to visit and never left. He was instrumental in finding backers for their bar Les Jardins, soon working there, writing, staging, and directing various musical spoofs and tributes. He also was befriended by Richard (Dick) Robison, whose Garden and Gun Club Lamme later joined as staff. He describes the small "quiet? beautiful" town Charleston was, its social structure and its class of closeted gay men. "Everybody knew that there were important people in the city? who had boyfriends," he notes. "But Charleston was such a polite city, you don't bring up that subject because? [t]hat person is a good person?." As a bartender and a door man, he was involved with selecting or rejecting those applying for membership, and got to know drag queens, society women, bar owners, other bars and bar patrons, many of which he describes. He also became active in the founding and running of Helping Hands dedicated to raising awareness of HIV and AIDS and raising funds for people with AIDS. He reflects on some of the earlier aspects of gay life in the city, speaks of attending local and national LGBTQ parades, describes the devastation of Hurricane Hugo, his work in hotel banqueting, as a guide at the Calhoun (now Williams) Mansion, and in the tourism office of the City of Charleston. He ends by affirming how satisfying it is to see LGBTQ people out in the community, describing how children and others realize he is gay, and how he loves "the fact that not a single person makes any trouble for anyone walking hand in hand in Charleston right now."
Jensen Cowan (pronouns: They/Them) was born July 4, 1997 in Brandon, Florida, and discusses growing up in Socastee, adjacent to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in an emotionally and verbally abusive home. They discuss chosen family and close friends, their relationship with their mother and four sisters in a blended family and what it meant to leave home to start a new life at the College of Charleston, with mentions of being in the Bonner Leadership Program there. Cowan describes the struggles of separating from their family financially and finding a method to pay for school. Working with We Are Family and attending functions of Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), Cowan felt “discrepancies in maturities” in various groups, eventually finding supportive friends and neighbors to help with personal issues and the need for food. Cowan discusses identifying as queer, nonbinary, and trans, mentions a fundraiser they started to help pay for surgery and speaks of their capstone project to map all the gender-neutral bathrooms on the College of Charleston campus. Cowan notes a lack of response from College administrators on this and other LGBTQ oriented issues, describes the inconveniences and disruptions caused to their college studies by this lack of facilities and speaks to the insensitivity of some faculty and friends in using offensive vocabularies and inappropriate pronouns. Cowan and the interviewer discuss the lack of diversity within Charleston Pride, and the larger LGBTQ movement as a whole, while praising classes and faculty, such as Dr. Kristi Bryan, within the College’s Women’s & Gender Studies program and the positive effect it has had on them and others. The interview closes with a discussion of Cowan’s plans for the future after graduating in May 2019, having earlier mentioned a disinclination to return to working as an educator/camp counselor at Kids On Point (formerly Chucktown Squash), due to the fact that the students there would have known them under a different name.
Jeanette P. Singleton was born on October 6, 1932 in Awendaw, South Carolina. She attended South Carolina College and later the University of South Carolina where she earned a master's degree in library science. Upon her graduation, in 1954 she was hired at Lincoln School in McClellanville, South Carolina. She worked in this institution for thirty-seven years until her retirement in 1992. In the interview, Ms. Singleton talks about the school's lack of resources during segregation and the challenges brought by integration. She remembers Hurricane Hugo devastation and the efforts to recover from it. Singleton laments the closing of Lincoln High in 2016 arguing the school was important for the local community, which took pride in its history and its graduates' accomplishments. Finally, Singleton reflects on her calling to be an educator and offers words of advice and encouragement to young teachers.
As part of 2019 Pride Week on the College of Charleston campus, local television journalist Megan Rivers moderates and interviews four speakers at an "LGBTQ+ Justice: The Road Ahead Panel Discussion" sponsored by the Charleston American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Ryan White Wellness Center. The panelists introduce themselves sequentially and then, slightly out of order, each one answers one question posed by Rivers. Cora Webb (pronouns: she/her/they/them), Program Director of We Are Family, addresses issues facing LGBTQ+ youth such as bullying; the failure of schools to stop it; bathroom access for trans students; and the state's "No Promo Homo" law prohibiting discussion of queer identifies except in a negative light. Michael Luciano (pronouns: he/him) speaks on HIV and AIDS as a Peer Treatment Educator at Palmetto Community Care, a member of the National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project, the Southern AIDS Coalition, the Southern AIDS Strategy Coalition, the Tri-County Sexual Health Awareness Prevention and Education Initiative (SHAPE Tri-County), and other councils and committees. He mentions living with HIV for decades and focuses on SC state laws that target, criminalize. and stigmatize people living with HIV. Jerry Evans (pronouns: he/him), introducing himself as gay lawyer passionate about First Amendment issues, then discusses "religious refusal" and court cases pitting religious objections on certain topics against equal protection under the law for LGBTQ+ and other people. The last to be introduced, Kenya Cummings (pronouns: she/her/they/them), the Opportunities Organizer for Carolina Youth Action Project, speaks of her organization that serves and educates for girls, trans youth and gender non-conforming youth. She advocates for comprehensive sex education and discusses the state's over reliance on School Resource Officers (SROs), law enforcement officers who apply police tactics instead of educational approaches in difficult situations in schools, creating more problems than they solve.
Eréndira Fabela Estrada (b. 1963) was born in San Pedro, Coahuila, Mexico. Her large family, school, and participation in the Catholic Church youth groups shaped her life. When she was twenty years old, she arrived for the first time to Johns Island, South Carolina to visit her sister and brother-in-law. There, she met her future husband and father of her daughter who worked as a contractor for a local farmer. Soon, Fabela Estrada was working with him in the fields and helping to manage the administrative side of contracting seasonal agricultural workers. The couple divided their time between Johns Island and San Pedro but decided to settle down definitively when their daughter started school. Motivated to improve her English to help her girl with the school homework, Fabela Estrada began taking classes at the College of Charleston. She continued studying until she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Spanish and Education. For twelve years, she has worked as a Spanish teacher at the Military Magnet Academy in the City of North Charleston. In the interview, Fabela Estrada reflects on her experiences working in the agricultural fields, her love for studying and teaching, and the difficulties and satisfactions she experienced by challenging her community traditional roles. Eréndira Fabela Estrada (1963) nació en San Pedro Coahuila, México y creció sin carencias ni lujos en el seno de una familia numerosa. Su familia, la escuela y la participación en los grupos juveniles de la iglesia católica dejaron una marca importante en su vida. A los veinte años llegó a Johns Island, Carolina del Sur para pasar un tiempo con su hermana y su cuñado que se habían radicado en la isla. Fue ahí donde conoció a su futuro esposo y padre de su hija que trabajaba como contratista para un ranchero local. Con él trabajó en todas las labores implicadas en el cuidado de los campos y la organización de los trabajadores. La pareja repartía su tiempo entre Johns Island y San Pedro, pero decidieron establecerse definitivamente cuando la hija de ambos comenzó la escuela. Motivada a capacitarse y mejorar su inglés para poder ayudar a la niña con las tareas escolares, Fabela Estrada comenzó a tomar clases en el College of Charleston. Poco a poco, continúo estudiando y se graduó con un Bachelor en español y educación. Por doce años se ha desempeñado como profesora de español en la escuela Military Magnet Academy en la Ciudad de North Charleston. En la entrevista, Fabela Estrada reflexiona acerca de sus experiencias trabajando en el campo, su amor por el estudio y la enseñanza y los desafíos que enfrentó para salirse de los roles tradicionales de su comunidad.
Terry Cherry (pronouns: She/Her/Hers), white police officer, discusses the path of her life from birth in North Carolina, to education in California and elsewhere, to her service, in a number of capacities, as an out LGBTQ person in the Charleston, SC police force. She was born in Pinehurst, NC into a Methodist family. Her parents were both professors and very accepting and loving. Identifying as boy, she felt constricted by what society demanded of her, and went into therapy as a child to help with her anger at the situation. She attended UCLA, and when studying abroad in Australia, she reached a crisis when she nearly died from influenza. At her recovery, she decided to live as fully and honestly as possible. She came out to her parents, at first assuming she would be a disappointment and "imperfect," something her family totally rejected. At the Church of Christ-affiliated Pepperdine University, getting an MBA, she stressed LGBTQ issues and after graduating, she worked in the private sector before asking herself, "What can I do to make a memorable impact?" Turning to law enforcement, she went through the San Diego Police Academy training and in 2012 returned, hesitantly, to the Lowcountry where she has family. Expecting to find herself in a more conservative environment, she nevertheless lived openly in her daily life and work for the Charleston Police Force. She first served as a patrol officer on James and Johns Island, where she made an "investment" in learning the culture and heritage of the community, becoming a valued friend to many. She was officer of the year in 2017 and was among the first on the police force to participate in the Pride parade. Throughout the interview, Cherry speaks of the need to be oneself, to always expect the best of all situations, and others, and to ignore stereotypes, while working for social justice. She also notes that the Charleston Police Department, where she has worked as liaisons to the LGBTQ and Latinx communities, and now serves as the head of recruitment activities, has become a leader in the nation in diversity and inclusion, while not necessarily advertising the fact. She also gives a few brief vignettes of her professional life, referencing working the Emanuel AME massacre, talking a young lesbian out of suicide, and other incidents. She also discusses the city of Charleston's hate crimes ordinance.
Narrator_042 (Pronouns: He/Him/His), who requested the withholding of his name from the interview, discuses growing up in a small town in South Carolina as part of a financially "pretty well-off" blended family. At a young age, he began to notice that he was different. Realizing that he identified as gay, the narrator encountered resistance and hostility from family members. He recounts his experiences of starting to embrace his identity. In the process, he experienced "a lot of acceptance from friends," but at home, he realized "things were kind of shunned away or seen as just wrong," or even "demonic." He details his family's denial of his sexuality, their attempts to rid him of what they viewed as a "demon," and their attempts to maintain a strict home life structured around religion and scripture. This included monitoring his activity to prevent exposure to what they viewed as corrupting content on television and the internet. Despite such opposition, he periodically came out to his family, first at the age of thirteen, again at fifteen, and for a third time as a College of Charleston student. He describes in detail the reactions of the people closest to him, the actions taken by his family, and the challenges he continues to encounter with family members and how they have progressed over time. Note: At the request of the narrator, his name and other identifying details have been removed from the transcript, and the audio file of this oral history interview is not available. In lieu of a proper name, the speaker is referred to as Narrator_042, and other deletions made to the transcript are denoted in brackets.
In this interview Crystal Denise Helton (pronouns she, her, hers), a white program coordinator at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), speaks of growing up in West Virginia, her awakening to her sexual identity, her experiences with friends, family and lovers, her marriage and divorce, her conversion to Judaism, and her reflections on herself and society. An only child growing up in with parents who were divorced, but still living together, Helton had a solitary youth, taking refuge in reading, offering escape from an alcoholic father, and a sometimes-inattentive mother. Closeted in high school, she nevertheless had a girlfriend who lived nearby and she avoided the censure of disapproving peers while attending a series of different churches and denominations. Helton first realized she was lesbian when she had a crush on a Sunday school teacher, and evolved a healthy attitude to her sexuality without the guidance or advice of others. Leaving home, near Princeton, West Virginia, Helton attended Marshall University and later lived in Lexington, KY where she switched from a PhD program in history to a masters program in library science, and where she was in a relationship with the woman who eventually became her wife. While she understood prejudice against gay people, Helton never felt much of it directed at her, commenting that her conversion to Judaism, completed at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), in Charleston, SC, has sparked more of a negative response from others than her sexuality. Her ex-wife joined her in the conversion experience and there was much resistance to this religious change in her spouse's family. The breakup and divorce (the couple had three varying marriage ceremonies, including a very positive experience at KKBE), was difficult for Helton, who did not instigate it. Calling her ex-wife the extrovert, and herself an introvert, Helton discusses her family of choice, including a long-time friend, and new ones made in a bocce league and among "murderinos", fans of the "My Favorite Murders" podcast. She speaks of learning patience in a romantic relationship, and discusses the greater ease with identity and gender fluidity she sees in people younger than she. She believes that being a member of the LGBTQ community has brought her insight into privilege, power, and prejudice in the larger society.
Vanity Reid Deterville (she, her, hers), discusses her upbringing in Charleston, SC, college years spent in Atlanta, GA, and the challenges she faced as accepting herself and being accepted in society as an African American trans woman. Growing up in an extended religious family, Deterville knew she was different from most of her friends and family as she heeded the warning of her grandmother to not share her concept of her gender identity with most other people. Attending Morehouse College in Atlanta opened up new ways of expressing gender identity and sexual orientation for her, but conflicts with her family over these and other issues led to an unstable period in her life, when she experienced homelessness or near homelessness, financial problems and battles with drugs and dependency. She describes the various stages of self-expression she went through at Morehouse and the issues presenting feminine triggered at the all-male school and how over the years, there have been family rifts and reconciliations. She addresses what it was like to come out in Charleston, mentions the role the LGBTQ youth organization We Are Family played in the process and speaks a bit about the bar scene, articulating a stratification she noticed along class and racial lines._Deterville also speaks about local transgender issues, the segregated nature of LGBTQ life, and how many of her friends are more eager to attend Black Gay Pride events out of town rather than local gay pride events. She also notes the irony that people in the white community seem more empathetic on, and attuned to, transgender issues, than many in the people of color community. Yet white gay men tend to want to label and define her only as a drag performer and not accept her for her true status. She refers to a play "Sugar in the Grits" she wrote and performed for the local MOJA festival, a rare event that linked Gullah-Geechee heritage and LGBTQ life._In response to the question of what being LGBTQ has meant to her, she answers that it has led to "trailblazing," being constantly open to questioning normalcy, learning to love oneself, despite what one is taught, and being able to look at life in an a more nuanced and even more spiritual manner._
Edie Hirsch Rubin is the eldest of two children of Miriam Braun and Sigmund Hirsch, Romanians who fled Europe in early 1939. Edie describes her parents’ emigration by ship to Palestine, where they joined her mother’s cousin in Kibbutz Dan in the Golan. A couple of years later, they moved to Haifa and, in 1941, Edie was born; her sister, Ronite, was born in 1945. Edie talks about conditions in Haifa while growing up. Housing and food were scarce, tensions ran high, and they often sought refuge in bomb shelters during nighttime shelling of the city. She recalls feeling sad and acutely aware, as a child, of having almost no extended family. Her father had encouraged family members to leave Europe, to no avail, and most were killed in the Holocaust. Edie’s sadness was compounded by her lack of knowledge about the relatives who were lost; her parents did not share their memories with her or her sister. In 1952, the Hirsches moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Edie discusses the move and how the family adjusted to a new country. She met her husband, Joseph Rubin, in Montreal, and they married in 1961. Joseph’s profession as a cardiothoracic surgeon brought the Rubins to the United States. They raised their four children in Augusta, Georgia, and retired in Charleston, South Carolina. Edie worked in special education. She has always tried to live her life the way her father taught her—give back to the community and be grateful for what you have. This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Blanche Weintraub Wine and her daughter Dana Wine Johnson discuss how the experiences of Blanche's parents as Holocaust survivors have shaped their lives. Blanche, the oldest of six children, explains how Guta Blas and Leon Weintraub met in Wierzbnik, Poland, where they were incarcerated during World War II, and how they reconnected after liberation and ended up in Charleston, South Carolina. Central to Guta and Leon's story is sixteen-year-old Guta's brazen attack on a German officer just as she and other Jews, including her mother, were about to be shot. The force of Guta's personality is a recurring theme throughout the interview. Blanche recalls her mother telling her she was a replacement for her grandmothers, which she says didn't feel like that much of a burden, "but certainly, I knew there were certain things expected of me." She adds, "I was obligated to be the best I could be because . . . I was the product of two special people." Blanche describes how her parents introduced their memories to her as a young girl in an "age-appropriate" manner, providing greater detail as she got older. She became more emotional about her parents' experiences as an adult, when she was old enough to understand the "depth of suffering." Blanche acknowledges she had difficulty fitting in with Charleston's Jewish community and was lonely at times. She was aware that the other Jewish children were surrounded by extended family, something the Weintraubs were lacking. Dana says her experience is similar to her mother's in that she heard about the Holocaust from a young age and her sensitivity to it increased as she got older. She tells her grandmother's story whenever she is given the opportunity. She believes it's important to keep sharing stories so that the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten as the number of survivors diminishes. Blanche considers her negative feelings toward Poland and the Polish people, while Dana eagerly outlines her plan to visit Poland and retrace her grandparents' steps. This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, "The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature." Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Richard Weintraub was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the fourth of six children, to Guta Blas and Leon Weintraub, both Holocaust survivors. He relates some details of his parents’ story, in particular Guta’s daring attack on a German officer after being told she and a group of people that included her mother were about to be shot. Richard doesn’t recall his father ever talking about his wartime experiences. Guta, however, “could talk about it anytime, anywhere, to anybody.” Richard believes it was cathartic for her, but says “I’m convinced she never really got it out of her system.” He considers his response, as a child, to hearing his mother’s stories, noting he “never felt any residual effect of their experiences.” Richard describes his childhood as normal and thinks Guta was overprotective of him, more so than his siblings. He explains why he think it’s important to contribute to Holocaust awareness and to speak out against injustice. This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
