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402. Brendan Dagg, Interview by Sarah Davis, 8 November 2019
- Date:
- 2019-11-08
- Description:
- Brendan Dagg (b. 1981) describes his experience as an Irish immigrant living in Charleston. Brendan grew up in Tullamore, County Offlay. His parents owned a local grocery store in the community, and he describes his upbringing as ?typical Irish,? and very positive. He emigrated to the United States in 2011, after marrying his wife, who is American, and immediately settled in Charleston. The transition to living in the U.S. was ?fairly challenging? at first but got easier once the decision was made to make things permanent. Brendan comments that the only thing he really misses about Ireland is the relationships with family and being able to be a part of certain milestones, which is why he and his wife bring their two children over to visit with extended family as often as they can. Brendan is very involved with sports and is a part of the hurling team here in Charleston.
403. Brett Wadford, Interview by Derrick Hall, Ashton Howey, and Erin Donnelly, 15 April 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-15
- Description:
- Brett Wadford was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina and has lived in Charleston for the past ten years. Brett?s family immigrated to America around 1787 and came from Antrim, Northern Ireland. Brad?s family has a history of Protestant beliefs and he has ancestors buried in a Presbyterian cemetery in the upstate. He has been involved with the Gaelic Athletic Association in order to connect with his Irish background.
404. Interview with Emily Whaley Whipple
- Date:
- 7/18/2017
- Description:
- Interview with Emily Whaley Whipple, long time Charleston resident living on the lower peninsula in the South of Broad neighborhood. Whipple recalls growing up South of Broad at 58 Church and the change that took place over the past 75 years. She discusses her parents and their involvement in Charleston, both in city issues and the social scene. Her father, Ben Scott Whaley, was an attorney for the County Council, President of the South Carolina Bar Association, served in the South Carolina legislature, and was a charter member of Historic Charleston Foundation and its President for 13 years. Her mother was the chairwoman of a large annual church event and she started a dancing school with a family friend that met in Hibernian Hall and eventually the school was turned over to Whipple. She paints a beautiful picture of what it was like to play in the neighborhood, go to Charleston Day School, be one of three sisters, come home for 2 p.m. dinner, summer on Isle of Palms, vacation in Flat Rock, and spend weekends out on family plantations. Whipple provides commentary on Historic Charleston Foundation's home and garden tours. She mentions all of the people who were employed by her family and where they lived. Whipple also talks about various natural disasters that hit Charleston and how the city has changed to become much nicer looking but says that does mean that the city has not always been beautiful. She remarks, "Charleston is like a well-tended and cherished garden. That is what the city of Charleston is like. Certainly there are some plants that need to be pulled up or changed or rooted. But we love it. I'm so proud of the next generation and what they are doing to keep it this way. My mother always said that Charleston's adornment were its children, because we were all over the street." Interview conducted by Anne Blessing in Mrs. Blessing's home, on July 18, 2017. Recorded as part of HCF's "Changing Neighborhoods" series, made possible by a grant from the SC Humanities Commission.
405. Interview with Joseph Watson
- Date:
- 6/29/2017
- Description:
- Interview with Joseph Watson, owner of the corner store located at 62 America Street. Watson recalls growing up on the East Side and the changes that have taken place over his 67 years of living there. He discusses his mother at length and her strength and resilience to do whatever it took to raise her children as a single mom working several jobs. His mother, Mary Watson, opened up a restaurant in the same location where Watson's corner store is currently located, and called it Watson's Grill. Watson's ancestors were enslaved in Eutawville before the Civil War and were moved to this area to work on a local plantation. After freedom, two of the brothers were able to buy 72 acres in Parker's Ferry. Mr. Watson notes the changes in the boundaries of the east side, state of the schools in the area, involvement in the BAR, and addition of a community council. He worries that the cultural character of the neighborhood may get lost and the kind community and integrity that they have will be gone due to gentrification. Watson recalls several stores and landmarks that used to be in the area and different ethnicities of people living in the Eastside. Joseph Watson is committed to his community and wants to see his neighbors thrive. He finishes his interview saying, "Our Constitution says we. It didn't leave no one out, and we must make an effort to make sure everyone can have a job. And that's why I wanted and still want to start with our training program now." He intends to help everyone he can and empower the members of the East Side to want the best for themselves. Interviewed by April Wood on June 6, 2017 at Mr. Watson's shop at 62 America Street. Recorded as part of HCF's "Changing Neighborhoods" series, made possible by a grant from the SC Humanities Commission.
406. Interview with Thomas Pinckney Rutledge Rivers [Tommy Rivers]
- Date:
- 8/9/2017
- Description:
- Interview with Thomas Pinckney Rutledge Rivers, long time Charleston resident living on the lower peninsula in the South of Broad neighborhood. Rivers recalls they joy of growing up South of Broad at 28 Gibbes St and 7 Orange Street and the change that took place over the past 80 years. His parents were both from established, long time Charleston families. Rivers grew up hunting in McClellanville and was an avid hunter his whole life. He went away to boarding school, attended Davidson College, went to medical school, joined the army, then came back to Charleston and started practicing as an OBGYN at Roper Hospital. Rivers has a lot of commentary on what the hospital was like years ago and how it has evolved since the 1960s. A particularly funny story he tells is that he delivered a baby with a dying quail in his back pocket after being called in to the hospital while hunting. He believes he has delivered 7,000 babies in Charleston over his lifetime. Rivers has fond memories of the Charleston he knew as a boy and fears what has become of the city today with new development and an influx of tourists and new residents. Interviewed by Anne Blessing in Mrs. Blessing's home on August 9, 2017. Recorded as part of HCF's "Changing Neighborhoods" series, made possible by a grant from the SC Humanities Commission.
407. Interview with Herbert A. DeCosta, Jr.
- Date:
- 6/24/2003
- Description:
- Interview with Herbert A. DeCosta, Jr., former trustee, about Historic Charleston Foundation, historic preservation in Charleston, and life in Charleston throughout the years. Mr. DeCosta discusses growing up in Charleston in the 1920s and 1930s and his role in the city's preservation movement. He recalls childhood memories of living on Smith Street and on Sullivan's Island and his school days, including his attendance at the Avery Normal Institute. DeCosta's grandfather founded DeCosta construction in the 1890s, and Herbert speaks about the many historic properties in Charleston the company restored during his time as head of the company, including work completed for Historic Charleston Foundation's Revolving Fund. He goes on to discuss his family's ancestry and his involvement in St. Mark's Church and the Brown Fellowship Society. Interviewed by Kitty Robinson at the Missroon House on June 24, 2003.
408. Interview with John Martin Taylor, August 17, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-08-17
- Description:
- John Martin Taylor (pronouns: He/His/Him) born in Baton Rouge, LA in 1949, discusses his youth, university years, his travels, various careers in art and the culinary world, his family, friends, lovers and his husband. His father was a scientist with the Manhattan Project who moved the family to Orangeburg, S.C. Taylor speaks of a happy outdoor childhood, with some African American friends in the segregated South and little awareness of gay life or issues. The family also summered at Hilton Head, S.C. before its development, giving Taylor firsthand experience with the land and its foodways. He attended the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. at two different times, for undergraduate and graduate degrees. He speaks at length of the artistic circles there, including that of the musical group, The B-52s, whose first concerts he attended and with whom he remained friends, later describing their visit to the Charleston gay bar, Les Jardins. He came to Charleston, S.C. in 1975, left for the Virgin Islands, and lived in Paris, France and in Italy, pursuing a career as a visual artist and a photographer, eventually, becoming American Liaison and Food Editor of the French periodical ICI New York. Returning to Charleston, he had little to do with the local gay scene, feeling an equal attraction to men and women, or mostly to particular individuals who interested him. As his love for cooking grew, influenced by what he calls his strong “maternal instinct,” his childhood experience crabbing and fishing in the Lowcountry, his mother’s culinary skills, and his father’s interest in wines, he began to focus on a career. After learning the business in New York City, Taylor opened Hoppin’ John’s, a cookbook store in Charleston, and quickly became the recognized expert on Lowcountry and regional cooking and foodways, eventually publishing articles on the topic in local, regional and national publications. A serendipitous find of a manuscript cookbook from St. John’s Parish of Berkeley County prompted and nourished further research. After recovering from the damage done to his bookstore by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Taylor published his first book, Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking in 1992. He has published three books since then and mentored many while enjoying the friendship and respect of leading scholars in the field. Taylor notes the changes in the local culinary and restaurant scene, lauding many chefs and proprietors for their contributions. He and Mikel Lane Harrington were married in Washington, D.C. in 2010. Through Harrington’s work with the Peace Corps, the couple, based in Savannah, Ga. and Washington, D.C. have lived in various locations across the world.
409. Interview with Terry Cherry, May 28, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-05-28
- Description:
- 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.
410. Interview with Narrator_042, May 9, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-05-09
- Description:
- 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.
411. Interview with Denise Helton, April 22, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-22
- Description:
- 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.
412. Interview with Vanity R. Deterville, February 22, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-02-22
- Description:
- 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._
413. Interview with Robert Arrington, August 28, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-08-28
- Description:
- Robert Arrington (pronouns: He/Him/His), Black reverend of the Unity Fellowship Church, the only affirming church for LGBTQ people of color in the Charleston, SC area, discusses his personal life, his spiritual growth, and troubles and issues with his church and the larger Charleston, SC community. A native of Harlem, NY, Arrington grew up in an abusive household and due to a misdiagnosis, was sent to schools for the mentally handicapped. "My childhood was just about survival," he notes. Being different, he was the subject of contempt by others and sought solace in religion and the church, where he was told he was gifted. After being sent to a rigorous all male Catholic School, and his father's murder in 1974, Arrington and his family moved to a rural area near Durham, NC, where he graduated high school. In college, he married a woman "to make everybody happy," but that did not work out, and, moving to Fayetteville, NC, he became involved in a party scene, contracted HIV and nearly died. Back in Durham, facing family issues, Arrington rejoined the church, started an AIDS ministry, and could not be ordained as a minister in the Missionary Baptist Church as a gay man but only as "a non-practicing homosexual." To preserve his integrity, he joined the Unity Fellowship Church movement, and had a congregation in Charlotte, NC. Arrington then gives a brief history of the denomination, noting how he moved to Rochester, NY before coming to Charleston in 2010 and setting up a Pentecostal type church service here. Arrington describes the growth and decline of his congregation, mentions an ex-husband, and speaks of the prejudice he has felt in Charleston directed against him as an African American, and specifically against him as a reverend in and out LGBTQ church. While loving the area, he comments on the resistance of "gatekeepers" to change, feeling that racism is "in the air." He comments favorably on many working to improve the LGBTQ and African American communities, but concludes that many with power and privilege are halting progress.
414. Interview with Lee Anne Leland, July 25, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-07-25
- Description:
- Lee Anne Leland (pronouns: She/Hers) now living in McClellanville, SC, tells her story of coming to terms with and exploring her identity as a self-identified gender-nonconforming, lesbian, transgender woman. Being raised as a boy in a family of five siblings, she grew up in a prominent, socially and religiously conservative Mount Pleasant family where she struggled to understand and come to terms with her identity facing the disapproval of many. She describes a continuing and confusing search for self-expression and the impact such words as “cross-dresser” and “transsexual” had on her and her search for community, until, with the help of friends, she found her transgender identity. She recounts how she dealt with coming out, her experience with depression, thoughts of suicide, dysphoria over her appearance, various work experiences, and self-acceptance as an adult. Through all of this, Leland discusses the love and support she has received from her wife, Cindy, and the role she has had as an activist. Leland continues as coordinator of the Charleston Area Transgender Support (CATS), a board member of We Are Family, and a speaker at public events such as Transgender Day of Remembrance. She discusses how she perceives that claiming and living her authentic existence, even walking down the street, can be an act of political activism. Leland stresses the need for conversations and political activism especially in the political climate of 2018. Additionally, Leland recounts experiences and histories of Charleston’s gay bars, specifically the Lion’s Head, and the King Street Garden and Gun Club. She also mentions White Point Garden as a cruising spot, the Spoleto Festival, and the impact that the transsexual Dawn Langley Hall Simmons had on the Charleston community.
415. Interview with Charles Smith, July 7, 2018
- Date:
- 7/24/2018
- Description:
- Charles W. Smith discusses growing up, his adult professional life as a city planner and realtor, his personal life and his work as an activist for LGBTQ rights. His family lived in Orangeburg, Beaufort, Florence and Charleston and he was educated at the College of Charleston and Clemson University, moving to Miami in 1984. His early family life was overshadowed by the illness and death of an older brother. Realizing he was gay, he avoided being bullied in school by staying closeted. In 1987 in Miami Beach, FL, he met Carlos Guillermo Rodriguez. Soon after, Smith told his family he was gay and Rodriguez tested HIV positive. He wanted Smith to leave him, but Smith refused; their families in South Carolina and Colombia, South America accepted them. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Miami, with which Smith was affiliated as a senior warden, was also accepting and affirming. After his lover’s death in 1995, Smith, who had run for political office, but lost, moved to Charleston, SC in 1996, finding a changed city, which he attributes to Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. We Are Family, a youth-oriented LGBTQ organization had been founded by Thomas Myers and Smith stayed, founding a real estate firm catering to LGBTQ clients. There were a number of bars in town he remembers frequenting; he affiliated with St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, a historically African American congregation opened up to white congregants, many of whom were LGBTQ. Smith and others, mostly non natives, such as Linda Ketner, Jim and Warren Redman-Gress, Carolyn Kirk, Lynne Moldenhauer and Linda G. William, helped found Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA). They publicly confronted a newspaper ad attacking LGBTQ people. This, Smith believes, began the process of removing shame and empowering the LGBTQ community. Smith also describes the “thousand year rainfall event” of 2015 and his marriage to Rob Suli that year, in a Columbia, SC hospital to ensure their rights were respected in the arena of health care. He notes the importance of the internet to LGBTQ people in finding community. He mentions Lowcountry Gay and Lesbian Alliance (LGLA), the lives of Jay Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson in Miami, and two gay men, who wintered in Charleston, SC. They, according to Smith, participated in the gay purges of US State Department employees in the 1940s and ‘50s. He also mentions the ownership of gay bars in Charleston, SC and the conflict over LGBTQ rights that has split the local Episcopal Diocese.
416. Interview with Taylor DeBartola, August 3, 2018
- Date:
- 8/3/2018
- Description:
- Taylor DeBartola tells the story of his upbringing in Peachtree City, Georgia, a town he describes as “very conservative.” He discusses the competitive relationship he had with his younger brother who is close in age, as well as the role that religion played in their early life. DeBartola reflects on the way that he revealed his sexuality to his family, and the period of time where things between them were rocky, discussing the ways in which he had to be patient and allow his parents to “take their time” to accept him. Taylor then talks about his “chosen family,” and the way they all met at Dudley’s, a popular gay bar in downtown Charleston. He details the ways he sees gatherings with gay men changing in recent years, moving from public spaces to more private locations such as personal residences. Taylor also discusses gay married life in the South, later noting that he and his now-husband were “engaged when it was not going to be legal,” and stressing that young people should educate themselves on gay history, especially the HIV/AIDS crisis, which he stresses is far from over. He also talks about the ways that particular books shaped him and his desire to learn more about gay history, mentioning Harlan Greene’s Why We Never Danced the Charleston. DeBartola then describes the impact that artist and activist David Wojnarowicz has had on his life, and the ways that he has tried to trace Wojnarowicz’s and his partner’s time spent on a trip to Charleston. Finally, Taylor talks about his experiences being an openly gay College of Charleston student.
417. Unity in the Community program
- Date:
- 8/9/2018
- Description:
- At a “Unity in the Community” Forum sponsored by the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), Reverend Robert Arrington answers questions posed to him by female impersonator/performer Symone N. O’Bishop and members of the audience. After introductions by emcee Regina Duggins (aka Gina Mocha), Arrington speaks of his personal life, conditions in the lowcountry, and the development and evolution of his open and affirming Charleston Unity Fellowship Church. He describes growing up in Durham, NC, and living in Rochester, NY, before moving to Charleston, a place he finds not as progressive or easy to live as elsewhere. He mentions a dysfunctional childhood, being misdiagnosed with learning disabilities, and recalls various phases of his life, including being married to woman, being a female impersonator, being HIV positive for thirty years, and the love he now shares with his husband, stating that they were the first “out” African American gay male couple in the area to have a house built for them by Habitat for Humanity. Most of the interview, however, focuses on the growth of his church, his plans for it, and the need to be completely transparent in all aspects of one’s life, including one’s spiritual life. He and O’Bishop discuss the behavior of some closeted LGBTQ church goers, who hide their sexual and emotional lives to worship under ministers who preach against homosexuality. The only “out” African American minister in the area, Arrington describes his church as Pentecostal-related and its policy of accepting every one of every sexual orientation, identification and race. He responds to an HIV-positive transgender woman of color asking how to find a loving relationship; he and the interviewer also discuss sexually irresponsible behavior and strategies for finding a life partner. Prompted by other queries from the audience, Reverend Arrington agrees that there is a need for more coordination with his church and the community it represents with other agencies in the area. An audience member comments further that there must be a new attitude regarding such participation: instead of asking to be included, one must demand that inclusion. The interview ends with Chase Glenn of AFFA and others describing programs and initiatives of related interest in the area. A call for action results with applause at the comment that this forum may mark a new direction for one of Charleston’s marginalized communities.
418. Interview with Andrew Becknell, March 31, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-03-31
- Description:
- Andrew Becknell, sometimes known as Andrezia (pronouns: they/them, but also she/her) describes growing up in the Charleston area as a bigender or two-spirit person. They grew up in a conservative Catholic family, moving from West of the Ashley to Mount Pleasant. Becknell's parents divorced when they were young, and they became close to their mother, and has only recently begun to renew ties with their father. Becknell has Tourette's syndrome, misdiagnosed early on as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), leading to bad reactions to drugs and an unhappy year at Blessed Sacrament School. Later attending Wando High School, Becknell, who always sensed they were different, began experimenting with high heels and other forms of feminine attire, eliciting a range of both negative and positive reaction, the former from his family and the latter from a church youth group leader. Attending Trident Technical College, Becknell served as Vice President of Gay/Straight Alliance, which they helped found and later had both positive and negative experiences in a different work environments. Now working as a car-detailer, a job much enjoyed, Becknell discusses being out, "blending in," and also moving into "survival mode." Becknell mentions attending some Charleston Area Transgender Support (CATS) meetings, notes being more attracted to women, describes the impact of certain albums and musicians on them, declares that "The binary must die," and speaks of their attraction to Norse Polytheism. They also muse on the rigidity of the older generation, both straight and gay, in viewing of sex and gender roles, mentioning a lesbian "takeover" of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), making the organization more accepting. Becknell also discusses work with a number of therapists, and how a gender therapist has been most helpful.
419. Interview with Cator Sparks, June 12, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-06-12
- Description:
- Cator Sparks (pronouns: he/him), white board president of LGBTQ youth organization We Are Family, discusses his life as a gay man and his volunteer and professional work. He describes growing up in a liberal family in Atlanta, Georgia, and his difficulties and successes in high school. Sparks attended the College of Charleston in the early 1990s and speaks of coming out in Charleston into an exciting and accepting environment, then detailing his experiences in the rave scene. Along with rave venues, he describes gay bars including Treehouse, A.C.'s, and The Arcade. He discusses his volunteer work with neighborhood associations in the Cannonborough-Elliotborough neighborhood in Charleston and Harlem in New York City. Sparks performed in drag in Atlanta as Spectra Gramm, one of his performances during the Olympics being televised in France, where he soon went to study abroad. Back in Atlanta, he enrolled in American College, finishing his degree in fashion marketing in London. It was there he discovered dandyism, and he speaks of his conversion to it from rave fashion, defining what dandyism means to him, the effect it had on his life, and how it can educate others. He emphasizes how he values working with LGBTQ youth and his experiences volunteering with the Harvey Milk High School in New York City and with We Are Family in Charleston. Sparks describes the impact the 2016 Presidential election had on him, prompting his social action and recaps his professional life, including a description of working in Jeffrey, a high-end New York shoe store started by Jeffrey Kalinksy of Charleston, his freelance writing and his future plans of becoming a life coach. Photograph credited to Carolina Knopf.
420. Interview with Eric Sullivan, July 9, 2020
- Date:
- 2020-07-09
- Description:
- 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.
421. Interview with Elizabeth Lanneau Cox
- Date:
- 2018-12-27
- Description:
- Interview by Katherine Pemberton of Elizabeth Lanneau Cox, who was born in Charleston in 1943 and was raised and lived in Summerville, SC for most of her life. Her parents were also Summervillians but her family had connections to downtown Charleston through family ties and various family businesses on King Street (like Siegling's Music House). Mrs. Cox talks about her childhood in Summerville, various houses, families and business. Summerville landmarks that she touches on include: Town (Hutchinson) Square and the train station, Timrod Library, Bethany Church, Summerville Presbyterian Church, Guerin's Pharmacy, Summerville Theatre (Playhouse), Summerville Elementary, Rollings (Old High School), Azalea Park. Old Town Hall and the Pine Forest Hotel. She also discusses various aspects of town life, like the gradual paving of sand roads, the construction of the historic houses in town, going to the movies, etc., and talks about going with her father and step mother to Indian Fields church campground in the summers. In high school, Mrs. Cox worked as a school bus driver and was the drum majorette for the Summerville High School Marching Band. She married Edmund Knight and they restored a Victorian House at 620 Richardson Avenue. She goes on to talk about the house, the surrounding neighborhood and neighbors like the Cox Family who lived in the old Prettyman House on Oak Street. (Ironically, in 2018 Elizabeth married Dr. Joel Cox her old neighbor.)
422. Interview with Yvonne Evans
- Date:
- 2018-10-22
- Description:
- Interview by Katherine Pemberton of Yvonne Evans who was born in New York but her family quickly moved back to her father's hometown of Charleston when she was a baby. Mrs. Evans has lived her entire life in the Harleston Village neighborhood of the city, growing up on Queen Street, attending the Cathedral School, Bishop England High School and then the College of Charleston. She talks about her childhood, shopping on King Street, and biking everywhere. After marrying and starting a family, Mrs. Evans returned to the College of Charleston for a degree in Business Administration. She became active in a local "Town and Gown" committee designed to improve relations between the campus and the adjoining neighborhood of Harleston Village. This spurred her to run for Charleston City Council where she represented District 8 for 20 years, serving from 1999-2009. During her time on city council, she worked on issues related to tourism, the arts, and city planning initiatives. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
423. Interview with Martha Sass
- Date:
- 2017-07-17
- Description:
- Interview by Katherine Pemberton with Martha Sass, a woman who was raised in the East Side of Charleston. When she was a child, the family moved to Charleston from Cross, SC after the family house burned down there. They first lived on Line Street, then moved to the projects. While living on Line Street, she started attending Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church where she remains very active and involved. Mrs. Sass discusses living in the East Side; her sometimes difficult family life and her social life; going to school (Sanders Clyde, then C.A. Brown) and college (South Carolina State University); various grocery and department stores in the neighborhood and downtown; recreational activities including ice skating at County Hall, going to The Battery, and going to Folly and Mosquito Beach; moving to New York after high school then moving back to Charleston; meeting her husband; her involvement with the Church; Hurricane Hugo; etc. She reminisces about Cross, SC, where she visited throughout her early childhood. She also discusses the changes she has seen in the neighborhood both positive and negative, and her concerns about the future of the East Side. While she feels that she didn't experience racism directly, she was aware of racism and other racial divides in Charleston, and shares a story about her brother's marriage to a Vietnamese woman. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
424. Interview of Daisy Prince Walsh
- Date:
- 2018-12-18
- Description:
- Interview by Katherine Pemberton of Daisy Prince Walsh, long time resident of West Ashley. Mrs. Walsh reminisces about her childhood and also about life in Charleston before, during, and after World II. She was one of nine children. Her mother's family owned Cameron & Barkley and a metal factory. The family lived on St. Philip, Coming, and Pinckney Streets, and later in Garden Hill, an extension off of Rutledge Avenue. Mrs. Walsh recalls her day-to-day life when the family lived downtown: going to school, going shopping, going to Folly Beach, etc. She talks about shopping on King Street and recalls various shops, department and grocery stores, movie theaters, etc., recalling how King Street seemed to be racially based on being above or below Calhoun Street. She also mentions driving on the Old Cooper River Bridge and the origins of the Knights of Columbus Thanksgiving Day Race (now known as the Turkey Day Race). She also recalls life during World War II including rationing, "blackouts," and being afraid. She talks about meeting her husband. After they got married, she and her husband, who was in the Navy, lived in Buffalo for a time but then moved back to Charleston. In 1957, moved to a house on Yeamans Road in Byrnes Down in West Ashley, a neighborhood that had been developed in the 1940s as housing for Charleston Navy Yard workers during World War II. As her family grew, they moved to a second house on Yeamans Road. (She and her husband had eight children.) Then in 1965, they moved to a fairly new neighborhood in West Ashley where she still lives. She recalls life in West Ashley and the changes she has seen there, from the 1950s when it was mostly farmland and how it developed over the years as more and more people moved to the suburbs, including Harrison Acres, Lenevar, North Bridge, and Byrnes Down. She has witnessed many changes in Charleston during her lifetime: how it began as a "small town" and now after so many people from Charleston have left and after so many newcomers have arrived, commenting especially on the traffic. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
425. Interview with Leonard ("Lenny") Krawcheck
- Date:
- 2018-11-1
- Description:
- Interview by April Wood of Leonard ("Lenny") Krawcheck who grew up on Colonial Street and still lives in the same house he grew up in that his parents purchased in 1927. Mr. Krawcheck describes his family life; his neighborhood and schooling; what he did for recreation and entertainment; his father's business, Jack Krawcheck's menswear [313 King Street]; the places his family shopped for groceries and goods; and about life in Charleston in general. He also talks about the Jewish community in Charleston; his perception of race relations; and the changes in the practice of law since he began his career until the present. He also discusses his experience as Chairman of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) over several decades, the various threats to the city, and the importance of zoning laws. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
426. Interview with Joe Louis Jefferson
- Date:
- 2017-10-04
- Description:
- Interview of Joe Louis Jefferson by April Wood, a man who grew up in the North Central neighborhood and long-time attendee of New Israel Reformed Episcopal Church. Mr. Jefferson recounts his experiences growing up in the neighborhood and describes businesses that he would frequent as a young man. He used to walk through Hampton Park on the way to school and walked by the former zoo in the park. He recalls that the lions could be heard roaring at night from his house. He also describes his experiences working at local drug store and race relations through the Civil Rights era. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
427. Interview with Bill and Suzanne McIntosh
- Date:
- 4/21/2016
- Description:
- Interview with Bill and Suzanne McIntosh, long-time owners of 66 Anson Street (Chazal House), who reminisce about their home and the changes in the Ansonborough neighborhood that they have witnessed over the past 50+ plus years. Mr. McIntosh was a long-time Charlestonian who descended from Mary Fisher Bailey Cross, a Quaker, who came to Charleston in 1680. He grew up on Greenhill Street and later lived on New and Broad Streets. He went to the Craft School and High School of Charleston. He owned a successful travel agency on Broad Street and was the president of the Preservation Society during the "Omni [now Charleston Place] controversies." Mrs. McIntosh is from New Orleans where they met when both were in college. Mrs. McIntosh worked for the Evening Post. They purchased 66 Anson Street from Historic Charleston Foundation in 1961 through its Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project. They bought the house because as preservationists they wanted to restore a house. Also the house was inexpensive and they wanted a house with a yard. They had followed the lead of Peter Manigualt (Evening Post Industries) who had previously purchased a house in Ansonborough. Within eight years after they bought the house, at least 8 other Evening Post/News & Courier staff bought homes in Ansonborough, and as word spread, many others got excited and moved there. Repairing, restoring, and renovating the house has been an ongoing process, starting when the McIntoshes cleared out sand on the ground that had reached the front steps, added a new roof, and installed electricity and plumbing. Herbert DeCosta did the work and also advised on the interiors. Through the Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project under Frances Edmunds's leadership, Ansonborough became one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Charleston. Regarding neighborhood conditions and changes, like other homes in Ansonborough, 66 Anson Street was in deteriorated and neglected condition when the McIntoshes bought it. Many people thought the area was a dangerous slum but "many didn't see the neighborhood for how good it was … It was a poor community, not a slum … After World War II there wasn't any money" so the homes slowly became run down and weren't repaired. There had been corner grocery stores which were essential as most residents didn't have cars. (The corner stores were converted to residential during the Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project.) Many new Ansonborough homeowners were young couples before they had children. They socialized and shared information, eventually forming the Ansonborough Neighborhood Association. Ansonborough was a close community but has changed significantly over the years. Mr. and Mrs. McIntosh are the only original ARP homeowners living in the borough and they don't know many of their neighbors. Tourism has had an impact on Ansonborough, largely that of the carriage tours which Mr. and Mrs. McIntosh have not liked since the earliest tours. The rising value of homes has made it more expensive to live and maintain a house; almost all of the McIntosh's former neighbors have moved. There are also many part-time residents, which has changed the character of the neighborhood. Interviewed by Katherine Pemberton on April 21, 2016 at the McIntosh's home at 66 Anson Street.
428. Interview of Arthur Lawrence
- Date:
- 2019-03-20
- Description:
- Interview by Valerie Perry of Arthur Lawrence who lives in Charleston's West Side. Mr. Lawrence reminisces about growing up on the West Side when it was primarily an African-American community. He recalls day-to-day life in the West Side, referring to businesses, grocery and corner stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels/boarding houses. He also talks about the changes to both Charleston and the West Side community and reflects on gentrification, segregation, integration, housing, and heirs' rights, about the roles of hotels for African-American visitors during segregation. Mr. Lawrence, who was president of the neighborhood association for 20 years, worked with Mayor Riley and the Chief of Police on efforts to improve the community. He discusses the efforts and its successes. He also touches upon the importance of the church in the community. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
429. Interview with Gladys Harvey
- Date:
- 2017-10-05
- Description:
- Interview by April Wood of Gladys G. Harvey, a woman who grew up in the North Central neighborhood. Her father was carpenter and also a pastor of Gethsemane Church and her son is the current pastor of the church. Ms. Harvey describes her experience growing up as a pastor's daughter and how her father was very protective of her and her siblings. She recalls shopping for clothes and also the neighborhood grocery stores. She also discusses the Charleston Hospital Workers strike and how she felt when Martin Luther King was killed, and about her having gotten pregnant at 16 and had to leave Burke High School for a private school in Denmark, SC. She reminisces about lunches after church on Sundays and how this was the biggest event of the week. There was a lot of cross over between Gethsemane Baptist Church and New Israel Reformed Episcopal Church as neighbors, especially after Sunday services. Ms. Harvey has had the opportunity to travel a lot in more recent years and has enjoyed this opportunity. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
430. Interview of Erica and Dan Lesesne
- Date:
- 2019-03-25
- Description:
- Interview by April Wood of Erica and Dan Lesesne who purchased their home on Warren Street in 1989 from Historic Charleston Foundation through its Home Ownership Program (revolving fund). They are now some of the longest-term residents in the neighborhood in Radciffborough. The Lesesnes talk about the changes they have observed in the neighborhood including the demographics. For example, there had been many more older families who lived in there but they have moved out, and also are fewer African-American families than there used to be. They also describe the neighborhood as eclectic, which appealed to them. They discuss their experience purchasing the house from HCF and how they appreciate that it is protected by a covenant. They reminisce about Charleston architect Randolph Martz and also about Robert Ballard, who was the president of the neighborhood association and very involved in civic affairs. The Lesesnes also discuss their backgrounds. Mrs. Lesesne was an English teacher at Porter Gaud and an acting teacher. They also talk about spearheading an effort to preserve the family cemetery on Daniel Island. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
431. James Ellis Griffeth, Interview by Madeleine Ware, 8 November, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-11-08
- Description:
- United Methodist Church minister James Ellis Griffeth (b. 1942) grew up in Greenville, S.C. He attended Wofford College and later Duke Divinity School in Durham, NC. He worked as a chaplain with the Greenville Health System for twenty-four years until his retirement in 1998. In the interview, Griffeth discusses his association with South Carolina Clergy Consultation Service for Problem Pregnancies (SCCCS) in Greenville. He explains why he became involved and details the problems women requiring counsel faced during that time in South Carolina. Finally, he reflects on his own spiritual beliefs regarding abortion.
432. David Cosgrove, Interview by Summer Lane and Maggie Heslin, 15 April 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-15
- Description:
- David Cosgrove?s parents both came to America in 1964 and met in Elizabeth, New Jersey. David's parents are from rural areas in County Galway and County Mayo. Davd's father lived in Ireland until he was twenty two years old, when he moved to London with his brother, and David's mother came to America straight from Ireland at the age of nineteen. He has been to Ireland several times, as his parents regularly took him and his four brothers over to their hometowns during his childhood. David takes care to discuss similarities and differences between life and politics in Ireland and Charleston.
433. Cheryl Daniels, Interview by Nora Wright, Foster Lewis, and Tom Tate, 11 April 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-11
- Description:
- Cheryl Daniels was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Both of Cheryl?s parents were also born in Jersey City and their parents immigrated from Galway and Cork. Cheryl?s grandparents initially immigrated to America for better job opportunities. She discusses their journey to Americanize themselves upon entering the country by changing their names. She discusses the influence of Catholicism on her family and her public school education experience in America. Cheryl has lived in New Jersey, Colorado, and South Carolina.
434. Jeanne Chirdon, Interview by Anderson Heggemeier and Molly Dolan, 4 May 2019
- Date:
- 2019-05-04
- Description:
- Jeanne Chirdon discusses her experience with Irish heritage and the journey of her family?s immigration from Ireland. After her great great grandparents immigrated from Ireland, they settled in Pennsylvania. Some of her family traveled through the port in Cork, Ireland and most of her family immigrated through Ellis Island, New York. One of seven siblings, Jeanne grew up Roman Catholic and discusses Catholic traditions and how they have influenced her life. Jeanne shares the role of Irish music in her life, which developed from her relationship with "the Toms" at the age of 16. Music, for Jeanne, influenced her sense of community and comfort in Irish culture. After living in Cork, Ireland from 2003-2006, Jeanne moved to Asheville for graduate school, and later moved to Charleston with her husband. She plays the banjo, and is very involved in the Irish music scene in Charleston.
435. Vivian Cleary, Interview by April Silva and Roslyn Cleary, 10 April 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-10
- Description:
- Vivian Cleary, 64, was born in Dublin, Ireland. He shares stories about life in the Northside of Dublin. Vivian lived in Dublin until he was three years old when his parents moved to Birmingham, England, where he lived until the age of 17. Vivian shares experiences of family holidays in Ireland. Vivian came to Charleston twenty years ago and discusses how different life is in America. He discusses political issues with America during this time along with the process for applying for permanent residency. Vivian is also able to shed light on historical events in Ireland, such as experiences with the IRA, and separation of Northern Ireland and the Republic.
436. Thalia Orozco, Interview by Marina López, 26 June, 2020
- Date:
- 2020-06-26
- Description:
- 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.
437. Thomas Spera, Interview by Marina López, 9 November, 2016
- Date:
- 2016-11-09
- Description:
- Thomas Spera (b.1994). His father was born in the USA and his mother in Argentina. They met while on vacation and fell in love. The young couple made Scotch Plains, New Jersey home and there raised Spera and his two youngest siblings. Interested in pursuing a military career, he enrolled at The Citadel. In the interview, Spera recalls his pre-knob week and his time adjusting to The Citadel's culture as a member of the Band Company. He states his appreciation for the Political Science teachers and the value of having well-versed instructors. Spera reflects on his Latino identity and about embracing his Latino roots. Finally, he observes that The Citadel benefits by having a more diverse student body.
438. Jeanette P. Singleton, Interview by Saeeda Hugie, 7 February, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-02-07
- Description:
- 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.
439. Wiley Barrow Cooper, Interview by Madeleine Ware, 7 November, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-11-07
- Description:
- United Methodist Church minister Wiley Barrow Cooper (b. 1942) was born in Greenville, South Carolina. In addition to his pastoral work, he had a long career in human services. In the interview, Cooper discusses his association with South Carolina Clergy Consultation Service for Problem Pregnancies (SCCCS) in Greenville. He explains why he became involved, his role as a volunteer counselor, and the problems women faced during that time in South Carolina. Finally, he reflects on his own spiritual beliefs regarding abortion and his participation in the civil rights movement.
440. LGBTQ+ Justice: The Road Ahead Panel Discussion
- Date:
- 2019-09-13
- Description:
- 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.
441. Interview with George Thomas Lamme, October 24, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-10-24
- Description:
- 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."
442. Interview with Jensen Cowan, March 4, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-03-04
- Description:
- 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.
443. Interview with Samuel Cooper, July 9, 2021
- Date:
- 2019-07-26
- Description:
- Samuel Cooper (pronouns: He/His) discusses his upbringing, life history and beliefs, focusing often on the topic of being a gay African American man of faith. When his father, minister of Centenary Methodist Church, Charleston, SC, joined the military to become a chaplain, Cooper and his family began a peripatetic life that took them to various bases in this country and in Germany. Knowing early he was gay, seeing his homosexuality as a "gift," Cooper nevertheless suppressed it, eventually coming out to his family who accepted him, partially, he believes, due to his father having had counseled many LGBTQ men and women in the military. He notes both the benefits and liabilities of being Black and of being gay and describes an episode of crisis at Clemson University. A homophobic comment by a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes prompted him to leave that group, come out, join, and become an officer of Clemson's LGBTQ organization, the Lambda Society. He faced near dismissal from Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law for being an advocate of LGBTQ visibility, and later in the interview he discusses the impacts racial prejudice, both Black and white, and homophobia, can have on clients he represents as a personal injury attorney. In his return to South Carolina working briefly in the Fourth Circuit Solicitor's office, he traveled the state; Cooper, throughout the interview, gives many details of various bars in Columbia, Myrtle Beach and Charleston, describing their appearance and layout and the groups attending them. Once relocated permanently to Charleston, SC, he attended the Metropolitan Community Church and its off shoot, Open Door. He discusses his relationship with his husband, Stavely Edgar, recounts some failed homophobic attacks against him, and notes little or no pushback against Edgar and himself as an interracial couple. He speaks of his religious faith, the Black church, his opinion of historically black colleges possibly limiting experiences for their students, and the threats menacing minorities and democracy due to the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
444. Interview with Melissa Moore, February 19, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-02-19
- Description:
- Melissa Moore (pronouns: They/Them) discusses their personal life and the various roles they played in numerous social causes and organizations, many being LGBTQ related. Born in Mt. Pleasant, SC, they identified as male, and, denied that self-expression, Moore details the impact it had on their school years and the numbing escape made possible by drugs and alcohol. In passing Moore also describes a run-in with religious demands at Vacation Bible School, and being exposed to, and fascinated by, female impersonators at an early age. At the College of Charleston, Moore joined such groups as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, and the Women’s Forum, engaging intellectually and socially with new people and ideas. Coming to see that societal norms aid in controlling conformity and denying diversity, Moore was strongly affected by a billboard supporting LGBTQ rights put up by the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA). That prompted them to begin volunteering, and eventually working, for AFFA under the direction of Warren Redman-Gress. Moore later went on to work with Linda Ketner and SC Equality to attempt to defeat the movement within the state of South Carolina to define marriage as between a man and a woman. That was unsuccessful. In the process, Moore came into contact with other organizations such as Southerners on New Ground and worked with activists including Mandy Carter and others, creating opportunities to learn grass root organizing skills and to work with groups like Africa House in Orangeburg, SC. Moore notes the reluctance or refusal of national and other LGBTQ organizations to fund work in the South, assuming it “unwinnable” and also speaks to the lack of funding for social service agencies in lieu of political ones. Working with the Abortion Access Project, later called Provide, gave Moore further experience and they eventually became director of We Are Family, an organization in Charleston for LGBTQ youth. Moore details how under their management and planning the organization and its programs grew. They describe the plan to fund the organization through the creation of a thrift store and Moore notes how three LGBTQ organizations in town, Charleston Pride, AFFA and We Are Family recently moved to the same building in North Charleston. After touching on subjects like transphobia, the new management of We Are Family, and naming many people in the field they admire, Moore finishes the interview describing their new position with the city of Mount Pleasant, working on sustainable and equitable city planning.
445. Interview with Jamie Nadeau, May 8, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-05-08
- Description:
- Jamie Nadeau (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) describes her journey to self-realization as a lesbian trans woman and a successful business owner of a hand-press greeting card printing company in Charleston, South Carolina. Born in Nashville, Tennessee into a religious Church of Christ family, Nadeau attended religious schools. Her father, a member of the Potawatomi Nation, and her mother divorced when she was young, and she speaks of trying to reclaim and learn more about her native American heritage. Born intersex, Nadeau retains early childhood hospital memories and speaks of her conservative upbringing where LGBTQ people were seen as “cultural oddities” and trans people were thought “horrific monsters.” Trying to imagine herself as a lesbian in that conservative environment “broke my brain,” and she had to go through the “impostor syndrome” before claiming and becoming comfortable as her true self. Embracing technology and computers long before they were commonplace, she was a young hacker and researched gender identities in cyberspace when others perhaps were still using libraries. She attended Middle Tennessee State University for a year, where and when she first began to explore her identity; she then studied at, and received her degree from, the Savannah College of Art and Design. After her mother’s death, Nadeau vowed she would never wear men’s clothes again and began seeing a gender therapist. She quickly began sharing her status with friends, family and her wife Allison, meeting wholehearted support from the latter, and a variety of responses from others. Nadeau speaks to the various levels of acceptance from the religious community, and from her biological and chosen families. She speaks at length of her experiences in coming out, noting how “soul crushing” being “misgendered” in public can be, and praises the Charleston trans women’s community for being so accepting and supportive, affirming the importance of support groups and loyal friends. Nadeau also describes how she and her wife, Allison, friends since childhood, followed their fascination with printing and design and left their professions to become proprietors of their greeting card company, Ink Meets Paper. There is a brief discussion focusing on Charleston being a safer space for LGBTQ people than other areas of the Deep South, and in response to the interviewer, Nadeau suggest that LGBTQ people should not necessarily focus on otherness, but see the world as she does, a place of countless, diverse narratives, where people are to be encouraged for finding their own way and lauded for their strength in “occupying space” in a world of proscriptions and possiblities.
446. Interview with Richard Little, August 16, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-08-16
- Description:
- Richard Little (pronouns: He/Him/His) describes his youth and education, his founding and running a gay bar in Charleston, South Carolina, attending medical school, and his professional work as a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institute of Health. Born in Union, South Carolina, he attended Christ School, a private boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina, where he impacted student programming and where a research project of his prompted the state to take action on water pollution in Pisgah National Forest. After some experimentation in high school, Little came out as gay while attending Tulane University in New Orleans. After a brief stint in graduate school, Little moved to Charleston, where in 1979 he opened a gay bar, Les Jardins, more commonly called LJ’s, in the then-desolate Market area. Little describes some of the other gay bars in town and notes that his private club offered a place for both out and closeted LGBTQ patrons. State liquor laws mandated the necessity of incorporating as an eleemosynary institution, and LJ’s became a major supporter of the Spoleto Festival, gaining praise for the club and the gay community from Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. and others. He describes the evolution and growth of the club, its parties, programs and members, speaks of the Alcohol Beverage Commission’s anti-gay harassment, describes a court case regarding that, and mentions speaking to the Charleston Police Department about its harassment of gay men at the Battery, a cruising spot in Charleston. In 1984, opting not to franchise, but to close, the club, Little decided to attend medical school. He faced anti-gay bias at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston but found a welcome at the University of South Carolina Medical School in Columbia. Little was elected President of the American Medical Student Association and in a public venue confronted South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster for his homophobic comments, instead of addressing the topic of infant mortality. He speaks of early poor care of HIV patients in Columbia, a situation he tried to remedy and how “the good old girls’ network” brought him to the National Cancer Institute where he became head of the AIDS oncology center. In his work of almost thirty years, he has had patients he knew from LJ’s and from his hometown, and he mentions how difficult it has been to deal with so many losses over the years. But changes in HIV care, and changes at MUSC in Charleston, are signs of progress and the interview ends on a hopeful note.
447. Interview with Jack Sewell, February 16, 2020
- Date:
- 2020-02-16
- Description:
- 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.?
448. Interview with Emily Boyter, March 16, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-03-16
- Description:
- Emily Anne Boyter (pronouns: She/Hers) discusses her life as the daughter of missionaries, her religious upbringing and experiences with religion, coming out as a lesbian, reconciling “Christianity and queerness,” and many positive new experiences opening to her. She describes being born in Greenville, South Carolina, and being raised in Mexico City where her parents worked as Evangelical Christian missionaries, spending brief periods in the states. She left Mexico and attended college at, and graduated from, Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia. There, the strongly insular quality she experienced in the missionary world, continued, and many felt a great loyalty to the school and its President, Jerry Falwell, Jr. Identifying as straight during her time there, she nevertheless was aware of a “strong culture of homophobia at Liberty,” where close friendships could lead to questions about one’s sexuality and where being gay could lead to expulsion. In graduate school at Clemson University, Boyter began to meet, and form friendships with LGBTQ people, feeling on “friendly ground” for the first time in her life, among people who were unbothered by another’s sexual orientation or identity. Being in this open and accepting environment, Boyter began to come to terms with being “queer,” a word she embraces for its inclusiveness. Coming out in her religious community at Clemson was not a positive experience, so she eventually left her church. In the interview, she wonders if others would see her as a “Christian” at all, she having now found comfort in a feminine spirituality versus the strong paternalistic nature of many churches and religions. She recalls how many men in her religious milieu would weigh her (and other women’s) characteristics and traits, to determine if they would make good wives of ministers. After coming out to her family and on social media, finding support from some, but dismay and rejection from others, including a man who had been viewing her as a possible wife, Boyter is now in a committed relationship with another woman and they are considering marriage. Despite the difficulties faced by LGBTQ people in the upstate region where they live, Boyter, a resident of Easley, and her girlfriend feel rooted in the area, yet she expresses some misgivings at the possibility of raising children there. Her work at the Tri-County Technical College is rewarding; being “out,” she can serve as a mentor and a role model for LGBTQ students and others.
449. Interview with Mark Gray, March 31, 2017
- Date:
- 2017-03-31
- Description:
- Mark Gray (pronouns: He/His), white chocolatier and AIDS activist, in this third of three interviews (with transcripts of earlier ones available in the repository), discusses the changes in his life as he moved from West Virginia to Charleston, SC, where, in a "turning point," he worked on the "front line" of AIDS activism. Having grown up in Virginia, attending gay bars in Roanoke in an era when there were still raids, he became a renown chocolatier at the Greenbrier Hotel. He trained from 1977-1979 and then worked there for five years. He led a "charmed life" at this prestigious hotel where US Presidents came and the Iranian hostages were housed after their 1981 release. His friends included a gay speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, and the White House Executive Chef Walter Scheib. He speaks of the parties he threw, the relationships he had, and the start of the AIDS crisis. Moving to Charleston in 1984, Gray eventually established Cacao, a chocolate shop on King Street. He lived a completely out life in Charleston where he found people open, friendly and non-judgmental, recalls eccentric friends like Witsell Neyle and Mary Alston Ruff, mentions how African Americans attended the women's bar D?j? Vu, and contrasts the small town atmosphere and the beginning of the food and restaurant scene to later changes. Being an openly gay merchant started rumors and brought many to his shop including two gay youths seeking positive role models ? Joel Derfner, who later wrote books on LGBTQ topics and "Baby" Thomas Myers whose father founded We Are Family, an organization for LGBTQ youth. Distressed by the death of so many "boys" from AIDS, Gray helped found Helping Hands, a grass roots organization of volunteers who banded together to help people with AIDS, a disease that provoked such fear that he had to paper his store windows to shield those attending a fund-raiser there. He traces the creation of Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), and his growing involvement, noting how he learned to become an advocate "and that I do have a voice." He became trained in HIV testing and counseling, became the head of the volunteer program of PALSS, later Lowcountry AIDS Services, creating the nutritional program and a food bank. As he closed his retail store and concentrated on baking, and his business partner started St. John's Caf?, a gay friendly restaurant on John's Island (later The Fat Hen), Gray realized his work with HIV and advocacy "had become everything I was." This took a toll on his life and his relationships, which therapy helped resolve. Speaking on the current state of affairs, he says he is happy that HIV has become a manageable disease but is alarmed that people are still becoming infected, and regrets the fact that many younger than he are ignorant of this and other parts of LGBTQ history. He finds the community much more fragmented, assimilated and divided by class than what he experienced, yet ends on a positive note of his personal philosophy to "celebrate life."
450. Interview with Chase Glenn, September 19, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-09-19
- Description:
- Chase Glenn (pronouns: He/Him/His), white executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), speaks about himself and his family, his life impacted by a growing awareness of the LGBTQ community and its issues, his transition, and his professional development that took him from church work to his current position. Growing up in Mt. Vernon, IL, an insular, small and rural community into a loving and giving Southern Baptist family, Glenn was "pretty naive to the world growing up." While he "felt like the other," he "didn't have the words or the real understanding" of his identity. In a world where "heterosexual sex was bad, then gay sex was not just not on the table at all," he did not have a frame of reference or knowledge about gay or trans people. Not until attending Belmont University in Nashville, TN did Glenn know gay people and there it was a shock to be told that women could never be ministers in the Southern Baptist denomination, despite Glenn's life-long "call" to the ministry. Never "feeling fully a girl," Glenn began a relationship with another woman, that being the "path of least resistance" and worked in churches. When outed as a lesbian at work in a church in Florida, Glenn was given the option to stop living that way or be fired. That prompted a 2006 move to Charleston, SC, where Glenn maintained a relationship with a lesbian, was married, came out successfully to his family, and worked for the Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church. After seven years he began to work for Blackbaud, and his awareness grew as to his true identity. His relationship ended; he discusses some of the lesbian and other bars in Charleston he attended, as he openly pursued his transition, sharing it online and on his dating profiles. He met a woman whom he married and now the couple has a son through invitro fertilization. Glenn discusses his fears of being an appropriate father and recalls his growing involvement in the LGBTQ community, doing the design and layout for the first Pride programs, serving on its board, that of AFFA, and working for SC Equality and the Trans Action Committee. Having gotten a master's degree in counseling and experiencing again the call to advocate for, and work with, people, Glenn, after discussions with his wife, left the safety of his corporate job to become the director of the non-profit AFFA. He describes the directions in which he took the organization, details the complexities of the community needs assessment survey AFFA and its partners undertook, discusses some of the results, talks about how race and racism affect the community and how society affords him "white male straight privilege" because of his appearance.
451. Interview with TZiPi Radonsky, July 15, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-07-15
- Description:
- TZiPi Radondsky (pronouns: She/Her) speaks of her life and its many changes, her search for spiritual enlightenment and her work for a better world. Born into an "ortho-conservative" Jewish family in Boston, she grew up committed to Judaism, but cut herself off from it as a young woman. She attended college, got pregnant, married, and had two daughters. Her husband, a Catholic who converted to Judaism, joined her father in the women's sportswear business. When unionization prompted the transfer of the business to South Carolina, the family moved to Aiken, SC. She divorced, and began a friendship with a woman in Aiken, soon realizing it was love. She and her new partner were part of a closeted group of women in the area, and Radonsky felt frustrated that no one aided her in her pursuit to understand her evolving self. She attended a gay bar in Augusta, GA, began taking courses and was bat mitzvahed as an adult in Aiken. She "wasn't butch enough to be considered lesbian" and differed from most of her friends in having had children. Moving to Gainesville, FL, was "just like I walked into heaven," she notes. It was a liberating experience as she received a master's degree in occupational therapy, ran a women's bookstore and center, and lived in a women's only community. She then moved to Charleston, SC to work from 1984 to 1987 at the Medical University of South Carolina, where again, she found the community closeted. In Greensboro, NC, where she went to complete her PhD, she found a much more open community, wrote her dissertation on lesbians coming out, became a counselor, and began to reconnect with Judaism as she explored other spiritual avenues. A retreat in Taos, NM, prompted her to travel the world through the Servas International Program. As an out lesbian, she had positive, negative and neutral experiences. Mentioning Wicca, Gaia, and Native American religious traditions, Radonsky was ordained as a Rabbi in the Renewal Judaism movement by Mordechai Gafni, a charismatic leader who later lost his position due to claims of sexual misconduct. To take care of her aging parents, Radonsky moved to West Palm Beach, FL, despite her recovered memory of sexual abuse by her father. There she became friends with the early lesbian rights activists Connie Kurtz and Ruthie Berman. After her parents' death, Radonsky relocated to Beaufort, SC, to be near one of her daughters. She speaks of the conservative nature of the area, her work with the Unitarian Universalist Church, the lack of acceptance of her rabbinical degree by the Jewish community and her outspoken support of many causes and issues. She mentions marching with a daughter in Columbia, SC (at the first Pride March), and with her other daughter in Greensboro, NC; her two long-term relationships; and events she helped organize, including a Beaufort gathering to mark the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub and the first Pride March held in Bluffton, SC. She closes by noting that the LGBTQ community has much to offer society at large, and she will continue dedicating her life to total inclusivity.????
452. Interview with DeLesslin George-Warren, January 14, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-01-14
- Description:
- DeLesslin George-Warren (pronouns: He/Him/They/Theirs) speaks of his life as a queer member of the Catawba Indian Nation and his work for social justice, through both direct action and performance art. The son of a white father, who worked in health care and later became a private consultant, and a Catawba mother, an attorney working with the tribe for federal recognition, he was called "Roo" from childhood on. Growing up in Rock Hill, SC, he felt a "dual consciousness" attending a conservative Christian school while being part of a very liberal family in which he was expected to find his own truths. He started volunteering at the cultural center on the Reservation in high school, but did not reclaim his Catawba heritage or come out as a gay man until he attended college, eventually realizing that? "liberation as a queer person is tied to the liberation of my community." At Vanderbilt University, he pursued musical studies and also worked to establish gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. From 2014 to 2017, in AmeriCorps, he lived in Washington, DC. In museums there, as a guide and cultural interpreter, he often took patrons by surprise, sometimes making them angry, when he gave more nuanced and truthful version of American history as it involved indigenous people; being pale and blue-eyed, he defies cultural stereotypes. With a grant from Running Strong for American Indian Youth, he returned to the Catawba Reservation in 2017 and became involved in projects reviving the Catawba language and focusing on food sustainability. In the interview, George-Warren speaks of being accepted in the Catawba community as a gay man, despite its affiliation with the? Church of the Latter Day Saints; describes the "briar patch" nature of Catawba family relationships; notes the historical matriarchy of the tribe; sums up the impact of the loss of federal tribal recognition and then regaining it; mentions a "strain of queerness" in Catawba history; and discusses his identity. He recalls a PRIDE march in Washington, DC, wherein he and others protested the sponsorship of corporations, some involved in actions on Indian lands; and expresses gratitude for being born queer, beyond the norm, to free himself from society's expectations. It's "liberating to be Catawba and also be queer," he believes. He perceives a need for solidarity in the LGBTQ community and notes, "I've seen more anti-Native sentiment in LGBT spaces than I have seen explicit anti-LGBT sentiment in my Catawba community."??
453. Interview with Kristen Lowe, October 10, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-10-10
- Description:
- Kristen Lowe (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) was born in Florence, South Carolina, and currently resides in Charleston with her partner, and works professionally as a hand therapist in a sports medicine practice. She discusses growing up in the small-town atmosphere of Florence, and the impacts of her largely conservative and Southern Baptist religious upbringing. She recalls happy childhood memories with her parents and two younger brothers, including spending summers on the lake. Attending a private Baptist high school, she was unaware of her identity and saw no LGBTQ role models anywhere, having her first experience at age twenty. A graduate of the College of Charleston and later the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), she hid her sexual identity at the former institution, afraid of being labelled if she attended Gay Straight Alliance meetings, but at MUSC, she eventually served as Vice President of the Alliance for Equality. Lowe describes the difficulty of arriving at self-acceptance, feeling solitary, and at first being fearful of going to church and educational figures, or even close friends for advice. Becoming more and more open, she searched for a place within the LGBTQ community, finding fulfillment and social acceptance in becoming a board member of Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA). She details the advocacy work AFFA does, achieving, just at the time of the interview, a victory in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina in its passing a non-discrimination ordinance. Being out has given her a freedom to do as she wants, dress as she wants and she also has a variety of reproductive options available to her and her partner, as well. Any harassments received for being perceived as a lesbian were minor, she notes. In answer to queries about the issues facing the LGBTQ community today, she reflects on the number of different identities within it, and although there is much more visibility currently, she reiterates the difficulty of coming out, recalling how she at first had to do it via letters to her parents. If it takes an individual years to come to terms with her identity, she reasons, family members should be given time to adapt as well. She also explains how naturally children will take to the idea of LGBTQ relations among adults since children come into the world unprejudiced and will remain so if their society will allow it.
454. Interview with Karl Beckwith Smith, August 26 and 28, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-08-26 and 2018-08-28
- Description:
- Karl Beckwith Smith (pronouns: He/Him) born in Saranac Lake, N.Y. in 1950, describes his early childhood in New York state and in Darien, Conn. as well as his relationship with his family, particularly his engineer father, whom he describes as a “man’s man,” and notable athlete, despite his father’s life-long struggle with diabetes. (At his death at age ninety, his father was reputed to be one of the world’s longest survivors and users of insulin.) Smith also discusses the eventual death of his mother and his time in St. Paul’s, a prestigious prep school in Concord, N.H., and his difficulties with classmates, whom he says knew he was gay before he himself knew. He speaks of how art provided an “escape” from many of the obstacles in his early life. He then delves into his time at Princeton University, where he studied art history and was one of the first students to paint for his thesis. While there, he lived for a few years in a commune-like setting with many others, including Lisa Halabey, eventually Queen Noor of Jordan. He makes mention of his mentor, the artist Esteban Vicente, and his exposure to other notable artists including Helen Frankenthaler. Smith recalls the date of April 1, 1972, when he met Hal Truesdale as one of the turning points of his life. He details the early years of their partnership, their travels in Europe and their “pioneering” loft living and entertaining extravagantly in lower Manhattan, where after giving up acting, Hal had his private hairdressing salon with prominent clients. Also discussed is the time they lived in Cold Springs, N.Y., their summer cottage at Loon Lake, Vt., and Smith’s very successful competitive sailing seasons in Newport, R.I. In 1984, Smith gave up other jobs to become an artist full-time, mostly painting furniture, interiors and mural. Returning to Truesdale’s birthplace of Columbia, S.C., to take care of his mother, the couple then moved to Charleston in 1992, where Beckwith painted murals for Charleston Place Hotel and a mural on André Michaux at the Charleston International Airport. After brief mentions of the AIDS crisis in NY and the Stonewall riot, Smith describes their settle life in Charleston. He and Truesdale were united in a civil union in 2000 in Vermont and married in 2013 in New York.
455. Interview with Steven Willard, May 31, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-05-31
- Description:
- Steven Willard (pronouns: He/Him), a white yoga and meditation teacher in Charleston, SC, speaks about his life and changes seen in society and in the LGBTQ community over the years. With a father in Vietnam when he was born, Willard and his family moved to North Charleston, SC when he was six. It was "small town, USA," and Willard attended church and public schools, where, knowing he was different, he found a friend who was also gay. As a teen, he worked in a record store in a mall and found comfort in seeing people he could identify as LGBTQ even as he sought further "validation" in movies, books and on television. He describes how he and his friend, with false IDs, attended bars such as the Garden and Gun Club and the Arcade, and the impact it had on them. While distanced from his father, he had a fairly good relationship with his mother; yet being discovered as gay as he finished high school at eighteen in 1986, led to his removal from his home. He moved to New York City where he felt safe for the first time. Mentored by an older gay man, he worked in a variety of jobs. Growing up in SC, he had had no access to positive information about gay life or AIDS prevention, and throughout the interview, Willard marvels at his luck at surviving the death and devastation around him. He returned to Charleston in 1993, left periodically, but came back. He found it necessary to be closeted working for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and coming out, experienced prejudice and harassment. He stood up to this, however, noting, "I might have been a fag, but I wasn't a punk." An interest in yoga lead him to teaching, and in the 1990s and afterwards, he witnessed a change in the city triggered by the empowerment from surviving AIDS. He noticed more gender fluidity in younger people and in himself in such places as the Treehouse bar. He gives a vivid description of the celebrations that occurred in Charleston when marriage equality was achieved, unfortunately, very close to the time that the massacre at Emanuel AME Church occurred. Throughout, he speaks of the loss of honesty, and face-to-face communication that social dating apps have brought about and then mentions the loss of LGBTQ spaces in the city, specifically describing Dudley's as a gathering spot for bridal parties. He regrets the lack of political involvement on social issues, such as abortion, among younger people, yet also believes that being LGBTQ "just living our lives is a form of activism." In reply to how being LGBTQ has influenced his life, Willard responds that, if not challenged as a minority and faced with prejudice, he could have become complacent. "Like women, people of color, LGBT, we all have to realize that we ?re in those cross hairs of these straight white Christian dudes, and we all have to fight together."
456. Interview with James Bouknight, January 15, 2020
- Date:
- 2020-01-15
- Description:
- 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.
457. Interview with Barbara Nicodemus, April 5, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-04-05
- Description:
- 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."
458. Interview with Tony Williams, October 14, 2018
- Date:
- 2018-10-14
- Description:
- Tony Williams (pronouns: He/Him/His), white director and CEO of Charleston Pride, was born in Charleston, SC, grew up in Goose Creek, and after a childhood of moving to a variety of places on the east coast, he returned to the area in 1999. A College of Charleston graduate, Williams now works in software at Blackbaud. The interview begins with Williams discussing his earliest childhood memories, his relationships with his sister, parents and extended family and how he came out to them after coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay man. He describes the "transition" from identifying as bisexual in high school to fully accepting that he was gay in college, and the importance of LGBTQ gathering places in the greater Charleston area. These gathering places, primarily LGBTQ bars like Patrick's, Dudley's, Pantheon, The Chart, and D?j? Vu, as well as the mentorship of College of Charleston professor Tom_Chorlton helped him to find community in Charleston. Williams discusses his concerns regarding the current popularity and primacy of identity politics and labeling, and he notes a growing "isolation" within society, due possibly to the increasing dependency on apps and technology, and the impact it has had within LGBTQ communities. William then recounts the histories of local groups such as the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA) and We are Family; and discusses the developments of Charleston Pride. He started as a volunteer with the event when it was in North Charleston, founded by Lynn Dugan and describes its move to downtown Charleston where it has greater visibility. He also speaks to the event's growth from just a single day event, "a parade, a festival, and an after-party", into a weeklong series of events celebrating LGBTQ life and culture. He ends his interview mentioning his involvement in the early planning of the development of a LGBTQ center in Charleston, modeled after similar centers in other cities._
459. Interview with Joseph H. McGee
- Date:
- 6/24/2003
- Description:
- Interview with Joseph H. ("Peter") McGee about growing up in Charleston, his involvement with Historic Charleston Foundation, and historic preservation in Charleston. In particular, he reminisces about playing on The Battery, going to school, living conditions in Charleston, grocery stores, streetcars, and the 1938 tornado. He also discusses HCF's long-time Executive Director Frances Edmunds, HCF's Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project, and the National Trust Meeting in Charleston in 1970. Interviewed by Kitty Robinson and Jonathan Poston at the Missroon House on June 24, 2003.
460. Interview with William J. Murtagh
- Date:
- 11/8/2005
- Description:
- Interview with William J. Murtagh (Bill Murtagh), the first Keeper of the National Register and one of the world's leading historic preservationists. In this interview he speaks about how he became the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places; his involvement with Charleston's first preservation plan and the development of what became known as the James Island Connector; his relationship with Frances Edmunds; and his vision for the future of historic preservation. Interviewed by Jonathan Poston at the Missroon House on November 8, 2005.
461. Interview with Jane Pinckney Hanahan deButts
- Date:
- 22/01/2019
- Description:
- 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.
462. Interview with Richard (Dick) Jenrette
- Date:
- 07/04/2005
- Description:
- Interview with Richard (Dick) Jenrette. Mr. Jenrette discusses how he discovered Charleston; his purchases of the Roper House, the Blacklock House, and others; his involvement with the rebuilding of the Mills House Hotel; and his collecting of classical homes and antiques and his foundation Classic American Homes. He also speaks at length about his tenure as an HCF Trustee; about Frances Edmunds's impact on the success of Charleston; and about how Charleston has improved over the years. Other subjects include the Charleston Place project; HCF's success in Ansonborough; his thoughts on the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Mayor Riley; and the scourge of power lines.
463. Interview with Vangie Rainsford
- Date:
- 25/07/2019
- Description:
- 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.
464. Interview with Richard Brown
- Date:
- 14/04/2019
- Description:
- Richard Brown is native to Sol Legare and was born "just off of Mosquito Beach" in 1953. Mr. Brown's family farmed and they sold their produce in the Market in downtown Charleston. He took a three minute walk from his house to Mosquito Beach on the weekends with friends. He described the different experiences for children, teens and adults- saying that elders told kids to "stay with your equals." He recounts starting work in the oyster business with Irving Singleton when he was aged six or seven. He collected and shucked around 16-18 bushels of oyster a day from Kings Flats. He details the harvesting process and how the Sol Legare area historically had an abundance of seafood and fresh produce. He talks too about the hard work and self-sufficiency of the residents and their strict parenting techniques. He also relates stories about Joe Chavis and his wife Middie.
465. Interview with William Saunders
- Date:
- 10/06/2019
- Description:
- "Bill" Saunders was born in New York City in 1935 but was raised on John's Island by his mother's family. He talks about the inter-connectedness and self-sufficiency of the Sea Islands, particularly John Island, James Inland and Wadmalaw Island. He talks about the importance of Mosquito Beach to the African American community. He recognizes the work of Bill "Cubby" Wilder and Laura and Andrew "Apple" Wilder in particular for the successes of Mosquito Beach. He says of Mosquito Beach, "...that's the place I was free." He reminisces about his lifetime of work in the struggle for human rights, including the Charleston Hospital Strike, and earlier violent racist episodes on Johns Island. Finally, Mr. Saunders recounts some experiences from his days with WPAL radio and he talks a bit about the music scene at Mosquito Beach.
466. Interview with William (Cubby) Wilder
- Date:
- 14/02/2019
- Description:
- Bill "Cubby" Wilder was born in Charleston in 1940 and perhaps more than anyone else, has championed the revitalization of Mosquito Beach and has safeguarded its history. As a child, people called the area "The Factory" for the old oyster factory that was located there. His father, mother and aunt all worked at the factory. Mr. Wilder also recounts how Joe "Kingpin" Chavis had a store where he would sell seafood and other items to beach visitors. Wilder also explains some of the connections between various families like the Lafayette's and Wilders and talks of how his uncle Apple Wilder built the Harborview Pavilion in 1953 and how other clubs and businesses followed suit. Hurricane Gracie in 1959 did a great deal of damage and destroyed the first pavilion. Mr. Wilder talks about the popularity of Mosquito Beach in context with other poplar Black entertainment spots and how people were drawn here from a large geographic area. He talks about the long journey to Atlantic Beach. He describes the dating scene as the "bird and the bees" and relates his memories of moonshine and bootlegging in the area. Wilder talks too about how Mosquito Beach was a safe haven during segregation and recounts that the Pine Tree hotel was open from 1962 to 1989 when it was wrecked by Hurricane Hugo. He also discusses the recent past and the future for Mosquito Beach.
467. Interview with Russell Roper
- Date:
- 14/02/2019
- Description:
- Russell Roper was born in 1943 in Charleston, SC. and in this interview he describes his memories of Mosquito Beach beginning in the 1950s. He relates that he and friends would enjoy the water, dance in the pavilion, swim, etc. There were boat races on Sundays and various clubs to visit like Uncle Jimmy's Club and Jack Walkers Club. Mr. Roper shares his memories of the segregation at Folly Beach and recounts an experience of being part of a group of young black men who went to Folly Beach one afternoon to cool off by the ocean until they were confronted by an angry group of white men. Andrew "Apple" Wilder was his uncle and Russell talks about his hotel, the Pine Tree Hotel where Russell worked on occasion. Mr. Roper also worked doing parking, operating bumper cars and operating a photo booth on Mosquito Beach. He tells of entertainers Bob Nichols, Honest John, John Ford and Shake-A-Plenty.
468. Interview with Cassandra Roper
- Date:
- 14/02/2019
- Description:
- Cassandra Roper was born on Sol Legare in 1945, the daughter of Laura Wilder and step-daughter of Apple Wilder. In this interview, Ms. Roper recounts how, as a child, she and her cousins came to Mosquito Beach on Sundays after church and chores. She describes the boardwalk, the pavilion and the hotel, all run by her mother and stepfather. Like many people from the area, Ms. Roper went to live in New York City, returning to the realities of Jim Crow segregation at school and other places when she was about 13 years old. Ms. Roper recounts that Folly Beach was off-limits to African Americans except for work. She remembers the large crowds at Mosquito Beach and how it was an oasis from daily realities and how it functioned as a place for music and as a dating scene.
469. Interview with Diane Hamilton
- Date:
- 2018-10-30
- Description:
- Interview of Diane Hamilton by April Wood in which she focuses on her years living in Maryville, West Ashley, as a child and now as a retired adult. She lives in the house she grew up in. Ms. Hamilton discusses her childhood, her parents and where they worked, the character of Maryville, transportation, attending school, college, and early jobs. Ms. Hamilton was a teacher for many years, first at Gresham Meggett and then at James Island High School, where she started working shortly after the school was integrated. Ms. Hamilton shares some memories of that transition. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
470. Interview with Virginia Joyce Freeman Howard
- Date:
- 2017-10-02
- Description:
- Interview by April Wood of Joyce Howard, a woman who grew up in the North Central neighborhood of Charleston. The interview focuses on Ms. Howard's experiences growing up in the neighborhood, what her childhood house and neighborhood were like (and how it has changed), where she was allowed to shop and go to as a young woman. She talks about having been recruited for college, her experiences during the Civil Rights era in Charleston and in Alabama where she went to college, and also voting and registering to vote, including how people had to pass a literacy test. She recalls times when Black entertainers who come to perform in Charleston and where they'd be able to stay, and going to Atlantic Beach (near Myrtle Beach) because Charleston area beaches were segregated. (She mentions Mosquito Beach but not as a "water beach" but one with clubs and houses.) She also reflects on the shootings at Emanuel A.M.E. Church and the impact the City on the nation impressed by the local response and as an impetus for many people to move here. Ms. Howard is a long-term member and leader of New Israel Reformed Episcopal Church. Grants from both the South Carolina Humanities Commission and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing allowed HCF to proceed with this initiative and several oral history interviews have been conducted that focus on specific neighborhoods and the changes these residents have experienced over time.
471. Interview with Yvonne Tucker
- Date:
- 3/3/2016
- Description:
- Interview with Yvonne Tucker, who purchased the house at 258 Ashley Avenue through Historic Charleston Foundation's Neighborhood Impact Initiative. Ms. Tucker recalls growing up on the East Side, later moving away, then returning to Elliottborough. After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase a home on Bogard Street through the Charleston Bank Consortium Program, Ms. Tucker believed that she'd never be able to buy a home until sometime later, Historic Charleston Foundation contacted her about its Neighborhood Impact Initiative and offered 258 Ashley Avenue to her. Skeptical at first due to the condition of the house and neighborhood at the time, she purchased the house with assistance from HCF, which also undertook the restoration of the house. Ms. Tucker recalls participating with HCF during the restoration and she learned to appreciate preservation. Asked about how the neighborhood has changed since she bought the house, Ms. Tucker states that there is much less crime and that she and her two daughters who grew up in the house feel safe. There are also more local businesses and her job is within walking distance. The downside is that the neighborhood has priced out some homeowners and that a historic house is expensive to maintain. Despite all the odds stacked against her, Ms. Tucker states that she wouldn't have been able to purchase a home without HCF and that both she and her daughters are proud of their home. "I didn't go looking for a home; a home came looking for me." Interviewed by Katherine Pemberton on March 3, 2016, at Ms. Tucker's home at 258 Ashley Avenue. Richard Almes, videographer. Recorded as part of HCF's "Changing Neighborhoods" series, made possible by a grant from the SC Humanities Commission.
472. Edith, Interview by Marina López, 13 August, 2019
- Date:
- 2019-08-13
- Description:
- Edith (b. 1967) was born in Mendoza, Argentina and lived there until 2001 when, like thousands of compatriots affected by the economic crisis, she decided to leave the country. She arrived to the United States with the help of good friends who were in South Carolina. She came with only her three children and the hope of a better life. She settled in North Charleston where has resided since then. In the interview, Edith tells about the process of learning to function in a strange community, how she was able to put an end to the abusive relationship she had with her children's father and how she learned to survive and thrive as a single mother. She discusses the different jobs she held and her family's strategies to get ahead. She is grateful and proud of her children. Finally, Edith reflects on the evolution of local organizations in which immigrants congregate and advocate for their rights. Edith (1967) nació en Mendoza, Argentina donde vivió hasta el año 2001 cuando al igual que miles de compatriotas afectados por la crisis económica decidió dejar el país. Llegó a Estados Unidos con la ayuda de unos amigos que estaban en Carolina del Sur. Solo traía a sus tres hijos y la esperanza de una vida mejor. Se estableció en North Charleston donde ha residido desde entonces. En la entrevista Edith cuenta acerca del proceso de aprender a desenvolverse en una comunidad extraña, como pudo terminar la relación abusiva que vivía con el padre de sus hijos y como aprendió a sobrevivir y prosperar como madre sola. Cuenta acerca de los diferentes trabajos que ha realizado y las estrategias de su familia para salir adelante. Se manifiesta agradecida y orgullosa de sus hijos. Finalmente, Edith reflexiona acerca de la evolución de las organizaciones locales en las que los inmigrantes se congregan y abogan por sus derechos.
473. Spoleto: Oral history with Michael Grofsorean
- Date:
- 2009-06-05
- Description:
- Longtime jazz director for Spoleto Festival U.S.A., Michael Grofsorean talks about his history at the festival since 1980. He relates anecdotes about past performers, including Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles and describes the process that goes into selecting the artists for each festival. He discusses festival founder Gian Carlo Menotti's distaste for jazz, the rocky years of festival finances, the NAACP boycott of South Carolina that nearly derailed the 2000 jazz program and describes why the city of Charleston is the perfect venue for the festival. Audio with transcript.
474. Spoleto: Oral history with Marcus Overton
- Date:
- 2009-06-05
- Description:
- Marcus Overton is an actor, director, and coach whose career has encompassed theatre, opera, radio and television, and arts administration. He also conducts an award-winning show for South Carolina Public Radio, Spoleto Today. Overton was executive director and producing director of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. during the turbulent years of 1992-1994. Overton discusses the rift between ousted executive director Nigel Redden and Gian Carlo Menotti, Menotti's own eventual departure from Spoleto U.S.A., and the personnel changes and budget deficits that threatened the survival of the festival. Audio with transcript.
475. Spoleto: Oral history with Carolyn Kostopoulos
- Date:
- 2009-06-05
- Description:
- Carolyn Kostopoulos, owner of Carelli Costumes, Inc. in New York, has been the wardrobe director of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. since 1982. Kostopoulos discusses her costume work for the festival over the years, the process of designing and creating, and the difference between her work on Broadway and Spoleto. She discusses her relationships with the artists who wear her designs and details the various costume headquarters she has had in Charleston including the haunted old city jail. Audio with transcript.
476. Spoleto: Oral history with Charles S. Way
- Date:
- 2009-06-09
- Description:
- Charles S. Way is a noted Charleston businessman and civic leader who has been involved with Spoleto Festival U.S.A. since 1978. He served as the organization's president in 1984, chairman of the board from 1985-1991, and has held the post of chairman emeritus since 1991. Way talks about the history of Spoleto Festival U.S.A., his relationships with Gian Carlo Menotti, Nigel Redden and others, how the festival piqued his interest in art, and his hope that Spoleto U.S.A. and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, will one day be joined together again. Audio with transcript.
477. Spoleto: Oral history with Tara Helen O'Connor
- Date:
- 2009-06-02
- Description:
- Renowned flutist Tara Helen O'Connor is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, founding member of New Millennium Ensemble and flute soloist of the Bach Aria Group. She has appeared in countless festivals and programs worldwide and has performed at Spoleto since 1994. O'Connor discusses her history with the festival, her longtime association with chamber music director Charles Wadsworth, her performances, her relationship with festival managers and artists, and the history and future of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, South Carolina. Audio with transcript.
478. Spoleto: Oral history with Geoff Nuttall
- Date:
- 2009-06-02
- Description:
- Geoff Nuttall began performing yearly at Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in 1995 as first-violinist with his renowned St. Lawrence String Quartet. In 2008 he was named associate artistic director of the chamber music series and will assume leadership from longtime director Charles Wadsworth in 2010. Nuttall discusses the legacy of Wadsworth and chamber music, the logistics of selecting the performers and the repertoire, and the advantages of having Charleston as a venue for the festival. Audio with transcript.
479. Spoleto: Oral history with Leslee Newcomb
- Date:
- 2009-06-05
- Description:
- Leslee Newcomb has been a wig and make-up designer for Spoleto since 1978. She discusses the intimacy of wig and make-up design and her interaction with performers and details the changes she's seen in Charleston since her first Spoleto Festival U.S.A. Audio with transcript.
480. Peter Kfoury, Interview by Rashaud J. Graham, Jacob C. Mathis and Trenton H. Moore, 11 April, 2017
- Date:
- 2017-04-11
- Description:
- Lebanese-American musician Peter Kfoury was born in Manchester, New Hampshire. His father was Lebanese and his mother Syrian. At thirteen, he learned to play guitar and soon after, he became fascinated with the oud, an old Mid-Eastern traditional instrument. He moved to Connecticut to attend college and for a few months, he took lessons with the Armenian musician George Mgrdichian. By that time, Kfoury started blending Middle Eastern music with jazz, rock, and funk. After a year, he decided to leave college and went to play music in New York. Later he returned to school and graduated as Dr. Chiropractor, the profession he has practiced for almost forty years. In the interview, Kfoury talks about the lack of diversity in the music offerings in Charleston as well as the lack of listening rooms. Responding to these voids, in 2016 he launched the World Music Cafe. John Holenko and Hazel Ketchum from Hungry Monk Music supported his efforts. Since then, World Music Cafe produces a monthly show that features three musicians of different musical traditions and styles. Finally, Kfoury talks about creating, recording and presenting his album At the Heart of Two Worlds.
481. Sameka Merisier Jenkins, Interview by Kieran W. Taylor, August 10, 2016
- Date:
- 2016-08-10
- Description:
- Chef and entrepreneur Sameka Merisier Jenkins (b. 1972) grew up in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina in the Seven Mile community. Her early memories relate to the delicious food that was shared by the family on Sundays after worshiping at the Great Will AME Church. She describes her family's cooking practices and the dishes that were prepared. Additionally, she talks about her childhood community, traditional medicine, and the accents and sayings of the elders. Jenkins developed her interest in cooking when she was a teenager and learned her craft by staying in the kitchen with the adults, following directions, and imitating them. She attended Francis Marion University and was soon cooking for her friends. Mixing with people from various places, she became aware of her rich heritage and developed a keen sense of pride in it. Since 2011, Jenkins has owned and operates Carolima’s a catering company that specializes in Gullah Cuisine. Jenkins reflects on the Gullah/ Geechee restaurants in the Lowcountry and her relationship with other business owners.
482. Erik Esquivel, Interview by Christian Merida, 5 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-05
- Description:
- Eric Esquivel was born in 1975 in Danville, Pennsylvania. His father was from Colombia, and his mother was from New Jersey. In the mid-eighties, his family moved to Hilton Head, South Carolina. He remembers how as a child he noticed the exuberant landscape and the racial diversity in his school. He grew up as a mainstream American child who was aware of his Latino roots because his family traveled frequently to Colombia. Esquivel attended Hampden-Sydney College and majored in Spanish. After college, he taught Spanish in Hilton Head and then, moved to Austin, Texas to work with Dell. In 1998, Esquivel and his two siblings created La Isla Magazine, which was launched in November 1999. Esquivel reflects on Hilton Head's demographics and the key role the Latino community has played in region’s economy. He remembers the origin of the Lowcountry Immigrant Coalition, and states it was formed in response to a Beaufort County's attempt to implement the Legal Employment ordinance, which encouraged citizens to report to the authorities people they suspected were undocumented. The business community, dependent on the immigrant labor rallied against it. Over the years, the coalition has kept working on many issues, among them, supporting DACA recipients, advocating against the "show me your papers" laws, providing counseling to immigrants and offering citizenship seminars. Finally, Esquivel reflects on the effects of President Trump’s race rhetoric in the local community relationships and immigrants’ fears.
483. 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.
484. Harry B. "Chip" Limehouse III, Interview by Joseph Williams, 13 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-13
- Description:
- Harry B. "Chip" Limehouse III was born in 1962 in Charleston, South Carolina. His family has a long history in politics, and he grew up attending electoral campaign events. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science at USC. In the interview, Limehouse remembers his close relationship with Senator Strom Thurmond, tells about his experiences working with him in Washington DC as a high school and college student, and states he was one of the most influential people in his political career. In 1994, he won his first election to the South Carolina House of Representatives where he served for over twenty years. Limehouse takes pride in his work as an elected official and the legislation he helped pass, particularly the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure. He talks about the Tea Party's beginnings and its impact on the Republican Party. He states he participated in the Tea Party events and supported its ideas but disagreed with its electoral strategy. Finally, Limehouse reflects on the present and future of the Republican Party.
485. Fred Lincoln, Interview by Timothy St. Pierre, 21 March, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-03-11
- Description:
- Fred Lincoln is a resident of the Jack Primus community in Cainhoy, South Carolina. He lives on the land owned and passed down by his formerly slaved ancestors. Lincoln discusses the protest organized by John "Sammy" Sanders to save the Meeting Tree in Daniel Island that got the attention of the local media but received limited support from the local Black community. He affirms the most pressing issue is protecting Black residents’ property rights. Lincoln has been a member of the Wando-Huger, Community Development Corporation since 1992. This organization has worked since its inception to ensure black residents receive adequate compensation when development is unavoidable. Lincoln takes pride in their work with Charleston County to zone 150 acres for affordable homes, as well as, stopping the Port Authority’s plan to open railroad and truck access through their community. He affirms that their ability to show up as an organized community with deep roots in the region earned them the political support they needed to succeed. Finally, Lincoln states they are currently working with the Department of Health and Environmental Control to bring city water and sewer services to the community.
486. Karla Martinez, Interview by JonahTrimnal, 4 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-04
- Description:
- Karla Martinez was born in 1981 in Zacatecoluca, El Salvador. Escaping the civil war, her family went to Mexico, stayed there undocumented for several years, and then crossed the border into the United States. Martinez grew up in Los Angeles, California. She remembers her life in Mexico and Los Angeles and shares her struggles as an undocumented student aspiring to attend college. Martinez attended UCLA and focused on economics and Latin American studies. Then, she attended law school at the University of Iowa. After graduation, she moved to Florida, where she practiced farmworker law. In 2016, Martinez relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, and joined South Carolina Legal Services and a few years later, the Charleston County Public Defender’s Office. Martinez talks about how she became involved with Charleston Immigrant Coalition (CIC). She reflects on the importance of ending the 287(g) program in Charleston County and the role the CIC had in the process. Finally, she reflects on the changes she would like to see including the law enforcement agencies providing appropriate cultural and linguistic services and South Carolina becoming more accepting of the Latino community.
487. 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.
488. Nick Rubin, Interview by Jason Pack, 15 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-15
- Description:
- This interview with Nick Rubin focuses on his political work with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). An organizer in leftist spaces for most of his adult life, Rubin got engaged with Charleston DSA in 2017. The organization became an official chapter in 2018 and was incorporated as a non-profit 501(c) 4 in 2021. Rubin reflects on the challenges and opportunities involved with forming the chapter. He talks about the many issues Charleston DSA members have been part of included the end of the 287(g) agreement between the Charleston Sheriff Office and ICE, the campaign for Medicaid for All, and the Bernie Sanders campaign. He states Charleston DSA members are active on many issues including environmental, housing, and labor rights among others. He is optimistic about the organization's potential to continue growing in South Carolina.
489. Oral History Interview with Edward Jones
- Date:
- 2021-06-30
- Description:
- Interview with Edward (Ed) Jones, an Eastside community advocate and city employee. As a leader, coach, and lifetime resident of the Eastside, Jones has helped shape the Eastside's youth and community for much of his life. He describes his childhood experiences moving to various locations in the Eastside and his working experience as an all-around sports coach, general contractor, mentor, organizer, and, currently, a community resource specialist for the City of Charleston. Jones never saw himself serving the community for as long as and in the manner that he does today, but after nearly three decades of work and a lifetime of experiences, he's continued to show up. He touches on the inequities and changes he's seen within his locale, including those in the public housing realm, recreation, and issues of policing and safety. In addition to his day-time job, Coach Jones is also the founder of the Concerned Citizens of the Peninsula/Lowcountry, or CCPLC, a grassroots organization with the intention of helping kids and communities in the Eastside and greater Charleston area. Jones makes it clear that all he does and wants to do is inspired by his own experiences, especially those growing up and living within the Eastside. He has a vision of a healthy and vibrant community that supports itself, works together, and offers all children the same opportunities regardless of family, race, or class.
490. Oral History Interview with Marcus McDonald
- Date:
- 2021-07-06
- Description:
- Interview with Marcus McDonald, who is the activist leader of Charleston Black Lives Matter and a local substitute teacher. He shares his experience moving from Columbia to Charleston for college as a young, black male. He learned the power words and communication hold at a young age, as both of his parents were deaf and he would often have to speak up for them. Mr. McDonald gives insight on how racial tensions shaped his education at the College of Charleston and how these circumstances led to his passion for advocacy and equity. He details the roadblocks to equity, as well as the ways he has used his personal power to help community members surmount them. In a seminal period of Charleston's history, Mr. McDonald hopes to see the various centers of the Eastside prosper, and cautions the rapid gentrification of the area.
491. Kevin Scott, Interview by Kieran W. Taylor, 28 April, 2012
- Date:
- 2012-04-28
- Description:
- Kevin Scott, Citadel Class of 1990, was born in 1967 in Augusta, Georgia. He was a JROTC student in high school in Mint Hill, just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, and found The Citadel as a natural choice for continuing with an ROTC program. Scott reflects on his time in the institution, where he found stability and a sense of place. Although he knew he was gay from an early age, the school's physical and academic demands left him with little time and energy to explore his sexuality. After graduation, he was concerned about the military homophobic culture and decided to pursue a job with the Charleston Police Department. He was denied the position because of concerns regarding his sexual preferences. The experience deeply hurt Scott, leading him to return to North Carolina to join the Hickory Police Department. In 2003, Scott founded The Citadel GALA (Gay and Lesbian Alliance) with the purpose of providing support to gay cadets. In this interview, Scott remembers a few remarkable events that occurred when he was a cadet such as the Corps of Cadets’ cold welcoming to General Watts when he was named president, a memorable food fight that happened close to Thanksgiving in 1987, and The Citadel making national news because a group of white students harassed an African American freshmen using KKK symbols. At the time of the interview, Scott was living in Washington, D.C. with his partner of sixteen years.
492. Joshua Parks, Interview by Mills Pennebaker, 18 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-18
- Description:
- Joshua Parks was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. He attended Howard University in Washington, DC and worked at the Sankofa Bookstore owned by filmmakers Haile Gerina and Shirikiana Aina Gerina. While in college, he was the chair of the NAACP college chapter and engaged in community organizing with Pan-African Community Action (PACA). His traveles to Cuba, Haiti, and South Africa contributed significantly to his political education. After graduation, he returned to Florida and worked as a teacher for two years. In 2019, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina to attend graduate school. He became involved in local organizing and was one of the founding members of the Lowcountry Action Committee. He reflects about the work Lowcountry Action Committee had done in collaboration with Eastside Community Development Corporation focusing on mutual aid, food distribution, and education. The Lowcountry Action Committee is also among the founding organization of the People's Budget Coalition and frequently partners with the Center for Heirs Property in educational programs for community members affected by development and gentrification.
493. Juan Fernando Soto, Interview by JonahTrimnal, 30 March, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-03-30
- Description:
- Fernando Soto was born in 1984 in San Pedro de las Colonias, Coahuila, Mexico. When he was seven years old, his family immigrated to the United States. Soto remembers growing up on Johns Island, South Carolina, and reflects on how this small rural community has changed over time. He attended Spring Hill College in Alabama and earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Soto talks about his decision to follow this professional path and states his family background informs his interest and passion for the field. He asserts he is not an activist but a journalist reporting on issues relevant to the Latino community. He talks about the Charleston Immigrant Coalition (CIC), explaining its beginnings and the issues it championed, particularly the end of the 287(g) program in Charleston County. Soto addresses the impact of COVID 19 in the Latino community and the disparities in access to care, stressing these same Latinos who are ignored by the government are the essential workers that keep the city alive and thriving. Finally, he reflects on the multilayered and complex scenarios Latinos face when they decide to leave home and cross the border.
494. Oral History Interview with Eduardo Curry II
- Date:
- 2021-07-12
- Description:
- Interview with Eduardo (Ed) Curry, who lives in the Eastside neighborhood and is the Central Manager of the St. Julian Devine Community Center. As a third-generation Charlestonian, Mr. Curry reflects on his roots in Charleston. He details how his passion for education and criminal justice was largely shaped by the experiences of his father, an attorney and former police officer. Mr. Curry gives an in-depth overview of his work at the St. Julian Devine, a central hub within the Eastside community, where he has facilitated after-school and summer care programs, coordinated enrichment programs for adults, and expanded educational opportunities for the children he serves. In the near future, Mr. Curry wants to transform St. Julian Devine to a cultural arts center. He expresses that he wants to empower the people of his community through education to ensure that their roots are emboldened in Charleston. Mr. Curry offers his perspective on diversity, as his family is multi-racial, and wants to ensure that children of all backgrounds are offered the same chances to express themselves through his community center.
495. Brandon K. Brezeale, Interview by Kieran W. Taylor, 17 June, 2010
- Date:
- 2010-06-17
- Description:
- Brandon K. Brezeale, Citadel Class of 2007, was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1985 and grew up in Moncks Corner. In this interview, Brezeale, who attended the Citadel with a full scholarship as a baseball player, discusses his experiences as a young man, questioning and exploring his sexual orientation in the context of the ambiguous homophobic-homoerotic culture of a military college. In his junior year, outside of school, he met two other gay men associated with the Citadel that supported him and introduced him to a larger gay-friendly community. He came out to his family during his senior year but waited after graduation to come out to his Citadel friends. He states his old classmates accept him and his boyfriend, but he is skeptical about The Citadel's readiness to openly embrace the gay cadets. He is grateful for the large Citadel alumni community and the doors it opened for him after graduating with an engineering degree. At the time of the interview, Brezeale was living in Washington, D.C. with his partner and working in an engineering firm while preparing to get married in the coming spring.
496. Mary Edwards, Interview by Courtney Akana, 9 March, 2015
- Date:
- 2015-03-09
- Description:
- Mary Edwards was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1967 she graduated from C.A. Brown High School. In the interview, Edwards recalls memories about her childhood in the Eastside Community, her experiences at C.A. Brown, and school integration. Finally, Edward focuses on her work as a counselor and instructor at Trident Technical College.
497. George Hopkins, Interview by Patrick Duggan, 24 March, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-03-24
- Description:
- George Hopkins was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1947. He is a College of Charleston professor emeritus. This interview focuses on his family background, his anti-war activism, and his academic career. Hopkins’ parents were WWII veterans. The family resided in mostly suburban, white Republican areas. He worked in a steel mill and attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. These life experiences expanded and changed his worldview. In his college years, Hopkins participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement and declared himself a conscientious objector. His activism continued in graduate school at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he studied urban and labor history. There, Hopkins and other students supported the work of Fort Bragg’s GIs that opposed the war. In 1976, he moved to Charleston with a one-year contract that became a thirty-two-year teaching career. Hopkins talks about his teaching and his research and writing. Some of the works he focuses on are his dissertation on Miners for Democracy; his essay on Charleston and the metropolitan military complex included in Martial Metropolis, edited by Roger W. Lotchin, an article about historians’ interpretations of the Vietnam War, and others focused on pop culture.
498. George Hopkins, Interview by Patrick Duggan, 1 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-01
- Description:
- George Hopkins was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1947. He is a College of Charleston professor emeritus. This interview focuses on George Hopkins' long commitment to social justice and labor rights in Charleston. Initially, Hopkins' activism was mostly related to the College of Charleston and focused on racial issues and academic freedom. By the end of the seventies, he got involved with Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment (CAFE). Since then, he has been a member and has served as president of the organization. He remembers significant labor-related events such as the closing of the Navy Base in the nineties and the longshoremen protest in January 2000 that ended with the five men known as "The Charleston Five" arrested and charged with felonies. He also reflects on the crucial role the ILA 1422 and CAFE - now Charleston Alliance for Fair Employment - have played for Charleston's intersectional organizing and coalition development. Finally, Hopkins talks about his participation in other social justice endeavors in Charleston, such as the Quality Education Project and the Charleston Area Justice Ministry.
499. Herbert Frazier, Interview by Courtney Akana, 18 March, 2015
- Date:
- 2015-03-18
- Description:
- Herbert Frazier was born in 1951 in Charleston, South Carolina. This interview focuses on his childhood experiences growing up in the Asonborough Projects and attending Buist Elementary School and C.A. Brown High School. When he was fourteen years old, his family moved to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Frazier returned to Charleston in 1969 and enrolled in the University of South Carolina. In the interview, Frazier reflects on the long-lasting effects of school desegregation.
500. Kayla Gilchrist, Interview by Hannah Cowan Jones, 15 April, 2021
- Date:
- 2021-04-15
- Description:
- Kayla Gilchrist was born in 1988 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Minnesota. After graduating from high school, she moved to Spain to attend the Universidad de San Luis to study Spanish and international relations. During her junior year, she lived in Cairo, Egypt. After graduation, she remained in Spain for another year and a half and then returned to the United States to attend graduate school at The Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. She graduated with a MA in International Policy Studies with a focus on conflict resolution and community development and a MA in Translation-Interpretation. Right after, she moved to Charleston, South Carolina to join Charleston Area Justice Ministry (CAJM) as an associate organizer. Gilchrist reflects on the life events that shaped her interest in organizing people and communities for social justice, including her experiences with school disparities as a child and living overseas. She describes her work with CAJM and Midland's Organized Response for Equity and Justice (MORE Justice). In 2020, she moved to Washington, D.C. and joined National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).