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31. Michaela Henderson, Interview by Sarah Davis, 11 February 2020

Date:

2020-02-11

Description:

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.

32. Diana Salazar Guzmán, Interview by Christian Merida, 11 March, 2021

Date:

2021-03-11

Description:

Diana Salazar Guzman was born in 1964 in Homestead, Florida. In this interview, she reflects on her Chicana identity and her family roots. Salazar Guzman remembers her role in leading the 2006 immigrant-rights march in Charleston and the challenges she confronted. She talks about her continued community work and the changes she has observed with the growing presence of the Latino community in South Carolina.

33. Interview with Jenny Turner, February 11, 2020

Date:

2/11/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jenny Lee Turner (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) speaks of growing up in West Virginia and Virginia, attending the University of Virginia for her undergraduate degree and obtaining a master’s degree in clinical counseling at The Citadel and her professional life mostly in Charleston, SC. Her coming out as a lesbian was complicated by her rural, religious and working class background, and she was shocked coming to Charleston in 1979, which seemed less sophisticated than Norfolk since Mt. Pleasant “didn’t even have sidewalks.” She worked in counseling at the Department of Social Services, got to know gay men and lesbians in the community, attending some bars and social events. As a White professional, she was dismayed by prejudice aimed at, and poverty she discovered in, the Black Gullah community. In private practice, she volunteered with Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), working with gay men with HIV, helping to set up the buddy program, and becoming friends with many who lost their lives to the disease or to suicide. She describes the fear and backlash AIDS prompted and much of the interview focuses on Corey Jerome Glover, the young Black child with HIV she and her partner, a physician, fostered as an out lesbian couple, even when state laws forbade that. She describes Glover’s short life and death (in 1994 before the age of three) in vivid detail and notes the depression that overcame her when she moved to New York. Returning to Charleston, she worked with the Medical University of South Carolina’s Institute of Psychiatry with teens with drug and other issues and she was injured when attacked in a charter school in North Charleston. Retiring in 2003 with post- traumatic stress disorder and osteoarthritis, she worked with therapy dogs and focused on her long-term relationship with Patricia Graf whom she married in Seneca Falls, NY in 2014. She talks about her own maturation and that of the local LGBTQ community, mentioning the NAMES project and Lynn Dugan’s founding of the Pride parade and the Charleston Social Club for lesbians. Noting the changes in Charleston, she calls it “a whole new world, and I’m wondering if the kids…these days…realize they are standing on the shoulders of others who have died for them….” Before the interview concludes, referring to the new less-closeted world of her youth, she states, “I’m delighted to be alive in it, and to see how far things have come, especially in Charleston….”

34. Interview with Michael Lott, June 11, 2020

Date:

2020-06-11

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. 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.

35. Brandon Chapman, Interview by Hannah Cowan Jones, 12 April, 2021

Date:

2021-04-12

Description:

Brandon Chapman was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1993. After graduating from the College of Charleston, he joined Charleston Area Justice Ministry (CAJM) as an associate organizer in January 2017. He worked with the organization for three years coordinating the demand for affordable housing in Charleston. In the interview, Chapman reflects on growing up in the Lowcountry, developing an interest in social justice, and the work and challenges involved in organizing and building people’s power in Charleston. He remembers the resistance CAJM faced when demanding a Charleston Police Department racial bias audit. Finally, he talks about his decision to move to Washington, DC and his job at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

36. Robert H. "Rabbit" Lockwood, Interview by Kieran Taylor, 12 September, 2013

Date:

9/12/2013

Description:

Robert “Rabbit” Lockwood grew up on the South Battery in Charleston, South Carolina. In his interview, Lockwood describes his long and rich family history, which dates back to the earliest Europeans in South Carolina, including two family members who were blockade runners for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Lockwood’s family tradition of seafarers includes his grandfather and great-uncle who were harbor pilots in Charleston. During his early years, he attended Gaud School for Boys and Charleston High before majoring in Civil Engineering at The Citadel. After graduation, Lockwood became an apprentice harbor pilot, working at the Charleston Harbor until he retired at the age of seventy. In his reflections, Lockwood considers himself lucky to have been able to keep this job and avoid the fate of many of his classmates, who served in Vietnam. He also shares some of his more memorable experiences as a harbor pilot.

37. Sean Doherty, Interview by Kevin McKenzie, 12 April 2018

Date:

4/12/2018

Description:

Sean Doherty discusses his experience growing up as part of an Irish-American family in New York City. His parents emigrated from County Donegal in the 1920s. He discusses growing up in a neighborhood of various first-generation immigrants from different backgrounds. He was an officer in the United States Marine Corps, until he became a salesman for Sylvan Pyrometric Systems, eventually retiring and coming to Charleston.

38. Michael Duffy, Interview by Hunter House and Darby Molony, 12 April 2018

Date:

4/12/2018

Description:

Michael Duffy (b. 1943) discusses his upbringing as part of an Irish-American family in Charleston. His paternal grandfather, William J. Duffy, emigrated from County Donegal, and the family settled in the coal region of Pennsylvania. His mother’s side of the family came over from Clonmel, County Tipperary, through New Orleans and settled in Charleston. Michael travelled to Annagry, in a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) region on the West coast of Ireland, on a search for more information about the Duffys, and stumbled upon a pub where he was able to get more information about the Duffys from that region. He has pieced together much of his family’s background since but is still searching for more information. He has travelled numerous times to Ireland and has built numerous friendships through his travels. In his discussion of growing up as an Irish-Catholic in Charleston, he recalls some of the anti-Catholic sentiments he encountered in childhood, specifically the vivid memories of his childhood friend’s mothers asking him peculiar questions about the Pope. He acknowledges that the Catholic church, and the various duties and services associated with it, played a central role in his upbringing. He speaks about the current Irish community in Charleston, and how the Hibernian Society is taking steps to promote Irish culture in the city, whether by bringing Irish music in, or through commemorative or educational events such as the building of the Irish Memorial on Charlotte Street. Michael is immensely proud of his Irish-American background, and of the contributions the Irish-American immigrants have made in the States.

39. Beth Schaffer, Interview by Spencer Fierszt, 12 April, 2021

Date:

2021-04-12

Description:

Beth Schaffer grew up in Goose Creek, South Carolina, where she stills resides. She has worked in the food and beverage industry since she was in high school. In 2014, Schaffer met Emily Ricards, a Fight for $15 organizer, and participated in her first march. Since then, she has been an activist for workers’ rights. In the interview, she reflects on her involvement in the movement demanding better wages and a union as well as on the impact that COVID has in the organizing efforts.

40. Joseph P. Riley, Interview by Kieran Walsh Taylor, 12 April 2016

Date:

2016-04-12

Description:

Riley describes meeting his father's politically-connected friends, including Congressman Mendel Rivers, and Senator and Governors James F. Byrnes, and Fritz Hollings. All close associates of his father. He also recounts his efforts to recruit Ken Burns to support the International African American Museum. Riley compares his father's and J.C. Long's careers in real estate development and civic affairs in Charleston and reveals that his father once considered running for mayor. Riley also explains the problems Charleston faced in the last years of the administration of mayor J. Palmer Gaillard Jr. Riley describes having Citadel President General Mark Clark visit the family home. Riley explains his decision to attend The Citadel and recounts his first year.