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1. Spoleto: Oral history with Carolyn Kostopoulos

Date:

6/5/2009

Description:

<p>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.</p>

2. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Allan Jay Sindler and Sophie Payeff Sindler

Date:

34842

Description:

Sophie “Skip” Payeff Sindler, born in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1930, and her husband, Allan Sindler, born in Bishopville, South Carolina, in 1925, discuss their family histories. Skip’s parents met in Chicago after emigrating from Knyszyn, Poland. Skip recalls encounters with antisemitism while growing up in Aiken. She describes her brother Kivy Payeff’s service in the military in Germany during World War II, and the traditional nature of services at the Aiken synagogue, Adath Yeshurun. Allan’s father, Frank Sindler, a tailor, emigrated from the Lithuania-Latvia region and married Pauline Schwartzman, a native of Baltimore. They followed Pauline’s aunt and uncle, Louis and Mary Schwartzman Slesinger, to Bishopville, South Carolina, where, for decades, Frank ran a men’s clothing store. Allan describes growing up in Bishopville, his Jewish education, and the Bishopville Hebrew Congregation. Allan and Skip raised their family in Camden, South Carolina, about 25 miles from Allan’s hometown. Allan, a chemical engineer and award-winning sculptor, discusses some of his artwork. Other topics discussed include: Sumter’s Temple Sinai, changes in Jewish religious observance, and possible reasons for the decline of Jewish congregations in small Southern towns like Camden. The transcript includes comments inserted by Allan Sindler during proofreading.

3. Interview with Colleen and Nichols Condon, September 30, 2020

Date:

9/30/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Colleen Condon (pronouns: She/Hers/They/Theirs) and Nichols Bleckley Condon (she/hers), the first same sex couple to receive a marriage license in South Carolina, discuss their personal lives, their courtship, and suing for (and winning) marriage equality in the state.  Colleen Condon speaks of her extended family and her Catholic upbringing in Charleston, noting she was so concerned with family and societal expectations that she never considered being lesbian. She married and had a son before coming out. Growing up in the upstate, Nichols Condon was not so religiously oriented. She attended Winthrop University, and also married. Both speak to their sadness in having divorces possibly sever larger familial networks. Each describe their coming out process, explaining it is not a one-time event and expressing  fears of losing  more conservative siblings, with Colleen Condon’s experience being more public,  due to her serving on Charleston County Council and eventually as head of the County’s Democratic Party.  After they met, their relationship grew quickly, with Colleen Condon humorously describing her proposal of marriage. They eventually decided to defer marriage until it became legal in South Carolina. They note the difference in LGBTQ acceptability between  Charleston and Greenville, SC, mention their devotion to pets, how femme presenting lesbians are often assumed heterosexual, and other topics. When a ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld same-sex marriage in its jurisdiction (including SC), the couple became involved, due to attorney Colleen Condon’s ongoing work on such issues, coordinating with Nekki Shutt, Malissa Burnett, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and South Carolina Equality. Nichols and Colleen describe swiftly escalating events, as their request for a  marriage license to Charleston County Probate Judge, Irv Condon, a distant relation of Colleen’s, was accepted, but then was delayed. They gained national and international attention as they became the test case for same sex marriage in SC. Both describe the backlash and some of their fears, as Colleen Condon details the intricacies of the various cases, noting how their 2014 lawsuit against SC was part of the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v Hodges legalizing same sex marriage. They married in 2015 and both, reflecting on the ordeal, conclude it was worth it. The interview ends with Colleen Condon speaking on work that still needs to be done in SC, specifically on transgender and gender confirmation issues.

4. Interview with Harold Brody, October 21, 2021

Date:

10/21/21

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Harold (Hal) Brody (pronouns: Him/His) discusses growing up in Sumter, SC, his work and interest in the theatre, his medical education and practice as a dermatologist, and his co-founding of the national Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association. He describes the small-town nature of Sumter, his experiences of anti-Semitism and homophobia there, and then moves on to his undergraduate experience at Duke University, where he became involved in theatrical productions, and consulted a psychiatrist to come to terms with his sexuality. Attending the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC, from 1970-74, he continued therapy, dating both men and women, and continued to pursue his passion for the theatre in Footlight Players and Charleston Opera Company productions. He mentions anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at MUSC yet reports that a representative of the Mattachine Society addressed the student body. After an externship in Boston, he went to Houston and continued at Emory University in Atlanta, where he first began to encounter HIV/AIDS patients and prejudice against them, staying on as faculty and fulfilling his career there. Soon comfortable with his sexuality, attending annual conferences of the American Academy of Dermatology, he noticed other LGBTQ physicians, and in 1980, he and a small group of friends began an organization called the Dermatology Specialists. Over the years it grew into the Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association, incorporated in 2011, which helps advance the careers of LGBTQ dermatologists and addresses dermatological issues for people in the community, including treatment of wasting in long term HIV/AIDS survivors and cosmetic surgery for trans people. He speaks with pride of advances in his profession, mentions his association with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, and talks on his continuing role in the theatre, often producing equity and non-equity shows. After the loss of a long-term partner, Brody became reacquainted with Donald Eugene Smith, whom he had met years earlier, and they married ca. 2016. He also talks about his political advocacy for Democrats in Georgia, reflects on the needs of understanding history, and speaks of mentoring younger LGBTQ dermatologists to be future leaders.

5. Interview with William "Bill" H. Carson, June 02, 2022

Date:

6/2/22

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. William “Bill” H. Carson (pronouns: He/Him) discusses the challenges growing up as an African American gay male in Columbia, SC, his Harvard and medical school education, professional life as an out psychiatrist, and his subsequent international work in corporate pharmacology, while also addressing his patronage of the arts.  His school teacher parents did their best to shield him from the worst aspects of segregation, with little disparagement of LGBTQ people, but with few role models available. Education was of prime importance in his environment. Turning down Senator Strom Thurmond’s appointment to the US Naval Academy, Carson went to Harvard instead, participating in the Harvard Glee Club and gay life on campus while avoiding Boston, then experiencing racial tensions.  Outed just as he began to attend Case Western Reserve Medical School,  he embraced the opportunities of self-growth and educating others. His status (coming out professionally before doing so with his family) continued in 1988 as he became a psychiatry resident at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He mentions the local LGBTQ scene, describes board work on Lowcountry AIDS Services, and the current lack of knowledge among younger gay people of the battles of that era. Beginning a long-term relationship in Charleston, Carson left in 1998 to work for Bristol Myers Squibb, in charge of life cycle management programs of the drug Abilify. That led to his 2002 employment with  the Japanese company Otsuka working with the psychopharmacological drug aripiprazole. Carson talks of the learning curve regarding Japanese culture and his subsequent work with international drug conglomerates, noting his excitement in learning new skills and points of view, necessary on national and international boards. Carson is also Board Chair Emeritus of the Sphinx Organization, helping in its mission to promote the careers of Black and Hispanics in the field of classical music. He speaks of the production of Omar by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, whose world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in brought him back to Charleston; he also discusses being a co-producer of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop on Broadway. He sums up the possibilities of gene therapy in possibly helping cure diseases such as AIDS, and despite retiring in 2020, he still stays connected with various boards and projects.

6. Interview with Kristin Graziano, May 31, 2023

Date:

5/31/23

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Kristine Graziano (pronouns: She/Her/Hers), out lesbian sheriff of Charleston County, describes growing up,  her work in, and attitude to, law enforcement and other topics including domestic life and volunteer services.  Born in Utica, NY in 1966, never really knowing her father until an adult, she was raised in Virginia by her mother, along with a younger brother and sister, after her parents divorced.  Living near Charlottesville, and with a house on the Chesapeake Bay, Graziano spent time on the water, and credits coaches and others for inspiring her work ethic and dedication to goals. She worked her way through  Piedmont Community College and the University of Virginia, attending when she could afford it. She did not find racism an issue until she came to Lowcountry in 2002;  the  Gullah language presented a barrier, and she was confronted with racist language and attitudes. There were no role models for coming out, but she embraced it, and it was a non-issue with her family.  Her attraction to law enforcement began as a teenager. Her sister was kidnapped, and escaping, she ran into the arms of a policeman. While that was traumatic for the family, Graziano “knew right away. If I had any purpose, that needed to be my purpose.” She eventually became a master police officer in Charlottesville, when crack was an epidemic, and later served in Charleston as a deputy sheriff, working on patrols, at first out of her depth in Black rural parts of the county.  She eventually made the SWAT team, first disqualified due to being a woman. Seeing the need for reform, she ran for Charleston County Sheriff in 2020 during the COVID epidemic, at first wary of, but then embracing, the Victory Fund dedicated to electing LGBTQ candidates. She shares her views of law enforcement, noting that compassion and giving chances to the incarcerated, is not weakness. She addresses changes in diversity and outreach within her department,  also describing crises, such as the death of a mentally ill inmate, faced as soon she entered office. She speaks of meeting her wife, Elizabeth, the raising of their two sons, her other businesses, coaching the  women’s soccer team at the College of Charleston and volunteering for Hospice.

7. Interview with James Sellers, October 13, 2023

Date:

10/13/23

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Sellers (pronouns: Him/His) answers questions about his upbringing in the city of Charleston, SC, and his knowledge of Jack Dobbins, victim in the gay-related “Candlestick Murder” that occurred in Charleston on October 31, 1958. Speaking by phone from Quincy, Massachusetts, he recalls his childhood home at 101 Meeting Street, later the Anchor Bar, eventually torn down, his parents and brother and various homes where they lived. He speaks of the naivety of his group of friends, mistaking gay men cruising at the Battery for communists, the reluctance of adults to address such issues, his experiences acting as a teen with the Footlight Players, mentioning many there by name, and taking art lessons at the Gibbes Art Gallery (now the Gibbes Museum of Art). In March of 1958, through the Footlight Players, he met the 29-year-old Jack Dobbins, who showed an interest in the 18-year-old. With no experience, Sellers panicked and describes Dobbins’ respect in honoring his wishes and the care and respect Sellers received. They eventually developed a relationship, and when Dobbins was murdered a few months later, Sellers, then in army basic training in Columbia, SC (where the commanding officer was a friend of Dobbins), was shocked at how the victim was misrepresented in the press, and how his assailant, who bludgeoned him with a candlestick, presented a totally different version of Dobbins, contradicting everything Sellers knew of him. Unable to speak out against the verdict that set Dobbins’s killer free, Sellers eventually left Charleston for art school and relationships, while still designing costumes for the Charleston Ballet Theatre and a Tricentennial production, celebrating the state’s 300th anniversary. In passing, he mentions John Zeigler and Edwin Peacock of the Book Basement, Patricia and Emmett Robinson and Kit Lyons and Dorothy D’Anna of the Footlight Players, Russel Wragg, William Halsey, Corrie McCallum and others. Sellers eventually moved to Boston, became an occupational therapist, and turned down the opportunity to work at the Medical University of South Carolina due to his more advanced political and social views. He describes his family’s servants, coming out to his father and his mother as an adult, and how his recent reading a history of LGBTQ Charleston brought back the events to him, and how discussing them with the interviewer has brought him some closure and peace on the subject.

8. Interview with Mike Schwarzott, September 3, 2020

Date:

9/3/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Michael Schwarzott (pronouns: He/Him/His), dubbed the “grandfather” of the Charleston, SC area LGBTQ movement, speaks of his personal life, the navy, and being  a social activist. From the Medina, NY area, Schwarzott grew up in a non-religious family, had some early same sex experiences and joined the US Navy, serving on a submarine based in Charleston, with expeditions to Rota, Spain. When found kissing another sailor in Spain, he was returned to the States and  honorably discharged in 1976. In Charleston,  he worked briefly at the Lion’s Head Inn gay bar, noting possible mafia connections, detailing vice squad raids, and explaining how service men were protected. He describes local gay life, mentioning taking up collections to pay bail for those, like drag queen Africa (Bryan Seabrook), arrested at the Battery. He soon returned to NY, married, and had two children. In 1989, he came back to Charleston to work in food service at the Veterans Administration. Noting changes in the city, he speaks of roommate, and later partner, cosmetologist Byron Wiles, whom Schwarzott cared for until his death from AIDS and lung cancer in 1993. He became involved with the founding of the Lowcountry Gay and Lesbian Alliance (LGLA) and describes its early meetings and members; he was also active in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which drew more people than LGLA. When reporters wanted a response from the LGBTQ community about pushback against a possible gay gym, Schwarzott, vacationing in New York, agreed to speak to the press, which he did via video link. He subsequently became a visible presence, speaking out on LGBTQ issues, prompting some negative reactions from  LGLA, versus positive reactions from the general public. He describes the demise of LGLA and the creation and growth of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), noting how its 501(c) 3 IRS status helped the organization succeed.  He served on AFFA’s board and continued to speak publicly as he brought in speakers including Mel White, the drag queen Lady Chablis, Troy Perry, geneticist and film maker Dean Hamer and his partner, Joe Wilson, and others. He also addresses the controversy between MCC and Open Door Christian Church and Reverend Wilhelmina Hein. One of his proudest accomplishments was bringing the AIDS Quilt to Charleston during the 1997 Spoleto Festival. He then sums up his years as an activist and encourages others to follow his footsteps.

9. Interview with George Holt, June 29, 2020

Date:

6/29/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. George Holt (pronouns: He/Him/His), a noted small-scale developer and designer of unique homes, reflects on his life in Charleston, his founding of the newsletter Gay Charleston, and his current professional projects. Born in Madrid, Spain in 1959, he moved to Charleston with his family when his father retired from the military in 1974. He attended Stall High School and the College of Charleston and was happily astonished with what he found in the local gay bars he started attending at age 17. He describes the closeted attitudes and prejudices of the day, noting violence against LGBTQ people, and tension between gay men and lesbians, and his visit to the women’s bar, Frannie’s. Unlike others, he always believed “the world was the problem”, not him, and in a bar, the Lion’s Head, he met the gay priest who had counseled his mother when she had sought advice on her son’s homosexuality. Holt, who is White, describes the African American drag queens he knew (Bryan Seabrook aka “Africa”, Teraja, Ms Edie and Wally) and his discovery of the caste of color in local African American society. After spending time in Chicago, he returned to Charleston and with friends and advice from Armistead Maupin, launched the publication Gay Charleston in 1981. He describes the difficulties and successes of running it, noting other contributors, including Keith Griffith (1959 – 2012), later to run a sex-focused publication in San Francisco, and the local Unitarian minister, George Exoo (1942 – 2015). He also speaks of Barry Kohn (d. 1987), who revived the paper, as well as his personal and professional relationship with his partner Jerry Moran. Holt attended the first Pride March in South Carolina (ca. 1990), as well as the National March on Washington (ca. 1993). Reflecting on changes in the city, Holt expresses his delight in how younger people are much open even while they don’t understand the difficulties of the past. He explains his current interest in workers’ and immigrants’ rights, his desire to counter the mistreatment of older people, and his determination to provide sensible and pleasing housing for all, including the handicapped. At the end of the interview, he recalls how he was “set up” previously on local media, attacked for being gay, and how glad he is to let younger people take up the cause.

10. Interview with Greg Kanter, June 26, 2023

Date:

6/26/23

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Greg Kanter (pronouns: He/Him/His), an out gay rabbi, discusses his life, the adoption of two children, one trans, and the impact of anti-trans laws on his family. Born in Cincinnati, OH and growing up in St. Louis, MO, he lived mostly with his divorced single mother. He matriculated at Hebrew Union College after graduating from Knox College in Galesburg, IL.   When finishing the degree, he realized he was gay after another student came out as lesbian. Aware of anti-gay bias, he kept quiet on his sexual orientation to achieve ordination.  He was hired by a Reform congregation in Minneapolis, MN. Coming out to the senior rabbi created conflict, the congregation allowing him to finish his two-year contract. Before going public, Kanter came out to his parents and his brother, who also confessed to being gay. As part-time  rabbi for a gay congregation in South Florida, Kanter grew the organization, but members rejected his desire to include families and children. He met Mike Merrill, a non-Jew, who became more conversant with Judaism, and they became partners. Wanting children, they gave up surrogacy, turning to international adoption instead. When that the adoption of a child named Elijah was imperiled, they turned to in-state adoption, with Merrill acting as a single male, LGBTQ couples not being allowed to adopt. Alayna, born premature, was in their care when then the international adoption came through, too.  Elijah immediately identified as female, and both parents demanded her school  accepted her as Emily, which it did, having faced similar issues with Jazz Jennings, eventually known  for her public appearances and cable television show. While Kanter was accepted in a synagogue in Del Ray Beach, FL,  trans issues there were not embraced. Subsequently, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) in Charleston, welcomed Kanter and Merrill and their two daughters. Once the SC legislature discussed bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Medical University of South Carolina cancelled care, Merrill began taking Emily out of state for treatment, and the couple, with Emily’s permission, went public. In July 2023, with concerns for Emily’s health, and fear of further anti-LGBTQ legislation, Kanter announced the plan to leave for another state where he and his family would be protected. Concluding, Kanter discusses being a gay rabbi in Charleston, the need for allies fighting for LGBTQ rights and an upcoming Pride service, the first in KKBE’s history.

11. Interview with Robin and Gil Shuler, August 18, 2020

Date:

8/18/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Gil (pronouns: He/Him) and Robin (pronouns: She/Her) Shuler, a heterosexual Caucasian couple, discuss their work in the 1999 film The Corndog Man, produced in the Charleston area, featuring African American actor Bryan Seabrook, also known, in drag, as Miss Africa. The Shulers speak of their work in local theatre with Steve Lepre and others and of Gil’s friendship with filmmakers Jim Holmes, Andrew Shea and David Steen, who, visiting in the area, asked for his help. The story, revolving around a character to be portrayed by actor Noble Willingham, who had committed to the project, needed locations, extras, and others to fill out the project, which had a minimal budget. Gil and Robin Shuler explain where many of the scenes of the film were shot, including in their yard and how they “wrangled” others to appear in the film. Of crucial importance was the casting of a drag queen, and it was Robin’s friendship with Bryan Seabrook, whom she had met at the King Street Garden and Gun Club, that brought a new racial perspective to the movie. She explains how she first visited the Garden and Gun Club years before as a Jewish high school student on a trip from Sumter to Charleston one weekend, found a diverse and accepting community there, and how that ultimately resulted in her decision to move to Charleston and attend the College of Charleston. She later went to other gay venues, but referring to “the Gun Club,” she states, “there was no place like it anywhere,” and she made friends for life there. The Shulers discuss the trouble they went through in getting extras to work long hours for no pay and how they moved Seabrook into their Mount Pleasant, SC, home to save him from homelessness during the filming and how their children loved him. With digressions on Seabrook’s death and funeral, they return to the topic of the film, which won some acclaim and became a bit of a cult classic, without making a large impression locally. The Shulers did not make any money on the film, and possibly never seeing the final cut, they did not realize the social “message” of the film and its powerful impact on viewers.

12. Interview with Anne B. Lee, July 30, 2020

Date:

7/30/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Ann Borden Lee (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life before and after transitioning. Born in Wilmington, NC in 1947, she was raised in a very spiritual family, and spent early years in Chapel Hill, NC, where she and a friend crossed dressed. Always feeling “alien” and faced with “an issue with no answer” regarding gender dysphoria, she became an overachiever, accomplishments being her only route to feeling normal. The family moved to Charleston where her father taught at the Citadel and Lee did a lot of “guy things”, trying to meet society’s expectations. She attended Davidson College, and the Medical University of South Carolina, later doing a residency in Florida. Concentrating on work was a way to disregard the tensions caused by trying to get others to believe that she “was a healthy, heterosexual cis-gendered male.” She married, lost her first wife of twelve years to breast cancer, a diagnosis that impacted their decision not to have children. Working for decades as a general and trauma surgeon, Lee woke up one day determined to claim her authentic self, and to fully engage in life. Much of the interview centers on the positive changes that have occurred since that day; she notes how her reading of the existentialists and her participating in Jungian dream work and discussions in Charlotte, NC, have given her frames of reference on life. No longer needing the shadow self, James to help her survive, she discusses patriarchy, the toll it takes on men and women, the different natures inherent in males and females and the issues facing other trans men and women, particular trans women of color. She describes her coming out on Facebook, relates reactions, and describes how she wants to re-engage, realizing she can’t demand instant acceptance, having lived as an “impostor” and a “liar” for years. Decrying homophobia, racism, and sexism, she describes how many “feel purer” by looking down on and attacking others. It was her outsider status, and her “woman’s heart” that marked her empathy as a surgeon, she believes. While acknowledging how privilege had worked for her, she champions women and discusses her late in life found peace, sometimes wishing it had happened sooner. A firm believer in God, she sees Charleston and society changing, and ends the interview discussing her new legal status, gender fluidity, surgical options, and her desire to live life to the fullest and represent and help those in her community.

13. Interview with Jenny Turner, February 11, 2020

Date:

2/11/20

Description:

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

14. Interview with James Moskow, February 10, 2023

Date:

2/10/23

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Moskow (pronouns: He/Him/His) discusses growing up in Charleston, SC, his birth family, and his time in the foster care system. He talks about moving around as a small child before moving to Charleston, SC at five or six years old, and discusses his time in the foster care system from the age of eight to fourteen. During his time in foster care he lived with relatives, in group homes, and ultimately was adopted by a single gay father. James talks about his biological family, their religious beliefs as Pentecostals and being adopted by a Jewish father. He discusses LGBTQ life in Charleston, attending a Pride festival in Summerville, SC and his friendship with Charleston drag queen Melody Lucas. He discusses his time at West Ashley High School and meeting a clique of friends in high school that he remains close to. Moskow recalls moving to Alaska and living on the Kenai Peninsula before the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to move back to Charleston.

15. Interview with Joe Hall, February 15, 2019

Date:

2/15/19

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Joe Hall (pronouns: He/Him/His), living in Washington, DC, after years of international work for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), discuses growing up gay in Greenville and Bennettsville, SC, overcoming alcoholism and leading an early AIDS service agency in Charleston, SC. With an accepting family, he embraced his sexuality; he describes gay life in Atlanta, after high school, describes a gay bar in Florence, SC, mentions living in New York, and Washington, DC before settling in Charleston where he got sober. He enrolled at a program at Fenwick Hall in 1983 and later at the Palmetto Center in Florence. He describes bars in Charleston and the founding of its gay Alcoholics Anonymous group.  After being counselor in a treatment center, he became involved with the Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS) agency, founded in Columbia by Bill Edens. He details the organization’s evolution, mentions the earlier group Helping Hands, and names leaders and supporters in HIV education and response, while discussing issues facing those with HIV. He speaks of being “defiantly” gay, coming out on local TV, and the difficulty of separating the Lowcountry PALSS organization from its Columbia base, it becoming a separate entity (later renamed Lowcountry AIDS Services), and the impact it had on his friendship with Bill Edens and others. He recounts the growth of the organization, services provided, and challenges faced, catering to various constituencies, including elite gay white men and African American religious groups, among others, while emphasizing the major contributions of lesbians. He gives vignettes of certain actions, including a demonstration by ACTUP in Columbia, SC, coordinating with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), protesting the policies of Governor Caroll Campbell, and the successful fundraising program Dining with Friends. He lists those who gave of their money, time, and services, and addresses the work’s impact on LGBTQ visibility as well as on his personal life. After working for another AIDS agency in another state, he travelled the world, eventually working for NDI in places such as Palestine, Azerbaijan, Sierra Leone, and Beirut, where he met his husband, André Saade. He and Hall moved to Washington, DC in 2012 and married. Saade became an American citizen in 2017 and Hall was working with an organization focused on international security when he died suddenly of an asthma attack during the COVID pandemic in 2020.

16. Interview with Terry Fox, February 4, 2020

Date:

2/4/20

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Terry Fox (pronouns: He/Him/His) co-founder of the Charleston Arts Festival, long time board member of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, and involved with many arts projects and organizations, speaks of his life as a “fairly openly gay man” since arriving in Charleston, SC in 1968. He was born near Lenoir, NC, and raised in the town of Hudson and had a loving upbringing. Majoring in English at UNC-Chapel Hill, he began to participate in gay life; after an unhappy year at graduate school at USC in Columbia, he moved to Charleston, which, compared to today, was “shabbier, sexier, more romantic.” A white man, he taught in the all-Black W. Gresham Meggett middle school on James Island the last year of its existence. A party he held for some of his students got him evicted from his downtown apartment; he later taught at a middle school in Mt. Pleasant, SC and then at the county’s first alternative school, Freedom School, for students with drug issues. His interest in emotionally disabled children led him to the position of educational therapist at Southern Pines, a private psychiatric facility in Charleston, with later stints as director of student life at Johnson and Wales College and the Art Institute of Charleston, while also founding the Marble Arch, an artist co-op. In his narrative, he also discusses gay life in Charleston, mentions some bars, such as the Bat Room, Streetcar, the Orvin Court bar, the Garden and Gun Club, where he worked as a bartender, and Les Jardins. He gives brief portraits of Richard (Dick) Robison of the Garden and Gun Club, bar owner Bobby Tucker, and describes his friendship with his neighbor early transexual Dawn Langley Simmons (1922- 2000) who “charmed, puzzled [and] fascinated him”. Never having felt “marginalized or treated unfairly” for being openly gay, Fox also served on the local HIV/AIDS agency Lowcountry Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services, describing the fundraising projects Affair of the Heart and Dining with Friends. He goes into the history regarding the long running PechaKucha program he co-founded and manages and gives details, as well, of events and successes of the Charleston Arts Festival. A modern art collector, he gives his assessment of the Charleston art scene, and notes, with disappointment, how Charleston has become more crowded and less of a “pleasurable” place to live than it once was.

17. Interview with Wilhelmina Hein, September 24, 2019

Date:

9/24/19

Description:

Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jacoba Wilhelmina Anneke Hein, known as Wilhelmina, (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life and experiences before and after sex reassignment surgery; she also reflects on her six years as a minister in Charleston, SC from her home in Almelo, the Netherlands. Born nearby in Enscede in 1947, she was raised in a very strict evangelical family, emigrating to Australia when she was ten. She kept her interest in men and in women’s clothes secret, instead following religious expectations of community by marrying and having a child. Only upon reading transsexual Jan Morris’s book, Conundrum, did Hein discover her true self. Divorce followed, and when her sex reassignment surgery in Australia stalled, Hein lived as a gay man before completing the reassignment program in New Zealand at age 47. Having served as a pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Australia, New Zealand and in Toledo, OH, Hein came to Charleston’s MCC in 2000. She found the weather “tropical” and her congregation, evangelical in spirit while cleaving to traditional liturgy, “almost schizophrenic.” She feels she made her congregation uneasy with her willingness to examine scripture and its context. Faced with church politics and vague allegations, she soon fell ill with diabetes and heart problems. When members of the congregation left the church soon after, they sought her leadership, and Open Door Christian Church was formed. Hein describes both congregations, their outreach and social justice efforts and her work as a minister and counselor in the greater community where she found acceptance. She notes that her Australian accent garnered more attention than her trans status. When her interest in Judaism lead to her attending Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue, studying Hebrew, and considering conversion, she informed her congregation that she planned to resign in six months. But the board immediately dismissed her, and although she wanted to remain in Charleston for conversion, developments in the Netherlands allowed her to retire there immediately. She left in 2006. Hein speaks of her work in Charleston, its racism, her development of a local LGBTQ radio show, and her happiness and satisfaction there. Identifying as a heterosexual woman of faith, conversant with LGBTQ and spiritual issues, she does not feel that there is a need any longer for separate LGBTQ religious spaces since “ultimately the issue is to live in broader society.”

18. Oral history with Rebecca D. Bryan

Date:

2/3/1971

Description:

Rebecca Bryan discusses memories of her life in Charleston. She mentions a contest between the fire departments, the Womens Exchange on King Street, Dixie Antique Shop, transportation as a young girl, several significant earthquakes and hurricanes, the history of her house at 110 Broad Street, the Battery as a child, her childhood schooling, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, and a story about the Charleston Light Dragoons. Audio with transcript and tape log.

19. Oral history with Harold Stone Reeves

Date:

3/24/1971

Description:

Harold Stone Reeves, a native Charlestonian and lifelong performer, discusses the many aspects of his life since his birth in 1892, including his longtime interest in Gullah, attending the University of South Carolina, his commission with the Charleston Light Dragoons during World War I, his involvement with the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals, and his role as the first manager of the of the Charleston Social Security Office. Audio with transcript and tape log.

20. Oral history with John Laurens

Date:

10/13/1972

Description:

John Laurens graduated from the Citadel in 1910. During World War I Laurens was stationed with the Charleston Light Dragoons in El Paso, Texas and later in France. In the interview, Laurens enumerates his siblings and discusses various occurrences in his life and in Charleston including family vacations on the Southern Railroad, a bath house that was once located at the end of Tradd Street, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, a tornado that took off the steeple of St. Philips Church and a fire at the Anderson Lumber Company once located on Broad Street. Audio with transcript.

21. Oral history with Septima P. Clark

Date:

11/20/1980

Description:

Clark recalls what Johns Island was like when she became a teacher at the Promise Land School in 1916. Topics of discussion include transportation, the houses and living conditions on Johns Island, the importance of the Angel Oak tree to African Americans living on Johns Island, and the changes in the Angel Oak from 1916 to 1980.

22. Oral history interview with Dr. Joseph Hoffman

Date:

10/9/1980

Description:

Interview with Dr. Joseph Hoffman by Lee Drago and Eugene Hunt, September 25, 1980 and October 9, 1980, AMN 500.001.003, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.

23. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Charlotte Saltz Brotman

Date:

1980-08-14

Description:

Charlotte Saltz Brotman was born in 1901 in Kolbuszowa, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, the youngest of seven children of Miriam Wolfe and Sholom Saltz. Sholom was an egg wholesaler, selling to customers in large cities such as Vienna and Berlin. In this interview conducted by her grandson Stephen, Charlotte talks about growing up in Kolbuszowa, a small city with a significant Jewish population. She has many fond memories of her childhood, recalling wedding and bar mitzvah celebrations. She received a solid secular education, belonged to a Zionist club as a young girl, and attended Hebrew school. Her family was "very religious" and they kept kosher. Both of her brothers and one of her sisters immigrated to the United States prior to World War I. The rest of the family had to evacuate to Czechoslovakia during World War I to avoid encroaching battles. Charlotte recounts the difficulties she faced after the war ended and they returned home. Their house had burned down and her parents died within months of each other, prompting her to join her siblings in New York City in 1921. She describes living and working in Manhattan, and notes that there were plenty of activities to enjoy in her spare time. The interviewee met her husband, Ralph Brotman in New York; they married in 1929 and, two years later, moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Ralph had lived in Charleston previously, running a men's store with his father, Jacob. Charlotte and Ralph opened an army store on King Street, which did a brisk business during World War II, with shipyard workers coming in regularly. After Ralph died in 1946, Charlotte wanted to sell the store, but couldn't get the price she sought. The right offer finally came in 1962. She sold the business and moved to Summerton, South Carolina, where her daughter, Miriam, and her husband, David Gordin, were raising their four children. Charlotte opened The Towne Shoppe, a ladies' dress shop there. The interviewee discusses her support for the State of Israel and its people, and reflects on the accomplishments of her grandchildren, Rachel, Debbie, Danny, and Stephen.

24. Oral History Interview with Eugene C. Hunt, 1980

Date:

11/4/1980

Description:

Interview with Eugene C. Hunt by Edmund L. Drago, August 28, 1980 and November 4, 1980, AMN 500.001.005.1980, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

25. Oral History Interview with Louise Mouzon

Date:

11/20/1980

Description:

Interview with Louise Mouzon by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, November 20, 1980, AMN 500.001.008, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

26. Oral History Interview with Julia Craft DeCosta

Date:

9/11/1980

Description:

Interview with Julia Craft DeCosta by Edmund Lee Drago and Eugene Hunt, September 11, 1980, AMN 500.001.004 in Avery Reseach Center Oral History Collection, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.

27. Oral history interview with Marcellus Forrest

Date:

2/21/1981

Description:

Interview with Marcellus Forrest by Lee Drago, Eugene Hunt, and Margareta Childs, February 21, 1981, AMN 500.001.002, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.

28. Oral history interview with Ruby Cornwell

Date:

11/24/1981

Description:

Interview with Ruby Cornwell by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, November 24, 1981, AMN 500.001.001, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, at the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

29. Oral History Interview with Peter Poinsette

Date:

3/31/1981

Description:

Interview with Peter Poinsette by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, March 31, 1981, AMN 500.001.007, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

30. Oral History Interview with Mary Moultrie

Date:

7/28/1982

Description:

Interview with Mary Moultrie by Jean-Claude Bouffard, July 28, 1982, AMN 500.009.005, in the Jean-Claude Bouffard Civil Rights Interviews, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

31. Oral history with William and Corrie Halsey

Date:

1983-05

Description:

Throughout the interview, world renowned painter and sculptor, William Halsey shares his views on art and the difficulties of being a contemporary artist in historic cities like Savannah and Charleston. He mentions studying under Elizabeth O’Neil Verner, attending the University of South Carolina, graduating from the Boston Museum School, living and painting in Mexico for two years on a fellowship from the Boston Museum School, as well as teaching at Telfair Academy and the College of Charleston. His wife, Mrs. Corrie Halsey, discusses her attendance at the University of South Carolina where she studied medical illustrating, her attendance at the Boston Museum School, and shares her experiences with juggling duties as both a mother and an artist. Audio with transcript and tape log.

32. Oral history with Tom and Hermina Waring

Date:

1983-05

Description:

Tom Waring discusses the history of Charleston, particularly the population growth in surrounding cities such as North Charleston in the first part of the twentieth century, its designation as the “Holy City,” poverty following the Civil War, the increase in employment during World War I, and the subsequent influx of newcomers to Charleston during World War II. Waring concludes the interview with a local Gullah Story. Hermina Waring discusses the legend behind her family’s silver service. Audio with transcript and tape log.

33. Oral history with Elizabeth Jenkins Young

Date:

1983-05

Description:

Longtime Charleston preservationist, Elizabeth Jenkins “Liz” Young, was born April 7, 1919 on Edisto Island. In this interview she conveys her love for Charleston and emphasizes the importance of its preservation, gives a brief lesson on the Gullah dialect, and discusses St. Michaels Church. Young also talks about Federal Memorial Day versus Confederate Memorial Day, a holiday designated to memorialize the soldiers lost in the Civil War, which she calls the “War Of Northern Aggression.” Audio with transcript and tape log.

34. Oral history with Dorothy Porcher Legge

Date:

1983-05

Description:

Dorothy Haskell Porcher Legge was a pioneer of historic preservation in Charleston. In this interview, Legge discusses her early efforts to restore homes on the peninsula and describes the restoration of her family’s residence at number 99 – 101 East Bay Street beginning in 1931. Legge worked privately and effectively to inspire the revitalization of this block of deteriorated eighteenth-century mercantile structures on East Bay Street which eventually came to be known as “Rainbow Row.” In the interview Legge also discusses growing up on Mulberry (on the Cooper River) and Bonny Hill (on the Combahee River) rice plantations and family history including the life of her mother’s grandfather, Rev. John Bachman. Audio with transcript and tape log.

35. Oral history with Lonnie Hamilton

Date:

1983-05

Description:

First elected in 1970, Lonnie Hamilton was the first African American to serve on the Charleston County Council. In this interview Hamilton discusses teaching at Bonds Wilson High School in North Charleston, his decision to run for Charleston County Council, subsequent elections, and his daughter. Audio with transcript.

36. Oral history with Mrs. Sparkman

Date:

1983-05

Description:

Mrs. Sparkman talks about several different ghost stories that are told about her house at 15 Legare Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Audio with transcript.

37. Oral History Interview with Anna D. Kelly

Date:

8/20/1984

Description:

Interview with Anna D. Kelly by Edmund L. Drago, August 20, 1984, AMN 500.001.014, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

38. Oral History Interview with Felder Hutchinson

Date:

7/16/1985

Description:

Interview with Felder Hutchinson by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, July 16, 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

39. Oral History Interview with Eugene C. Hunt, 1985

Date:

12/4/1985

Description:

Interview with Eugene C. Hunt by Edmund L. Drago, December 4, 1985, AMN 500.001.005.1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

40. Oral History Interview with J. Michael Graves, 1985

Date:

3/7/1985

Description:

Interview with J. Michael Graves by Edmund L. Drago, March 7, 1985, AMN 500.001.006 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston

41. Capturing the History of Edisto Island: Oral History Interview with Murray, Marion

Date:

10/12/1992

Description:

Marian Calhoun Murray was born in Evanston, Illinois, and later moved with her family to Asheville, where she attended high school. While at Agnes Scott College, she was invited to a house party at Edisto, where she met her future husband, J.G. Murray, a native Edistonian. They married in 1935, in Asheville; she was henceforth known on Edisto as ‘the girl from off.’ The couple moved to the Island after a brief stay in Mt. Pleasant, where J.G. worked with Micah Jenkins at Boone Hall. Coming from the city, Marian had much to get used to when they moved to Edisto: the smell of pluff mud, no electricity, water delivered by a pump, and a wood stove to cook on. J.G. had gotten a job as landscape architect for the Edisto Beach State Park, being built by CCC workers. Marian and a friend tried to teach the young CCC workers to read and write—her first foray into teaching. Marian spoke briefly about the economy on Edisto in those early days, mentioning a repair shop, an oyster factory, several stores (Perry’s, Bailey’s, Posner’s), and farming, the backbone of the economy. By the mid-1940s, J.G. was managing the farm at Cypress Trees Plantation. Farming was done with mules, carts, and wagon, using the task system developed in the plantation days. Major crops were cabbages and potatoes. She also recounted memories of the hurricanes of 1940 and 1959 on Edisto, as well as wartime rationing. In 1941, when a vacancy came up at the Edisto Island School, Marian got a job teaching English, Latin, science, and biology. Parker Connor was the principal; other teachers during her time there included Sally Pope, Arlene Jenkins, Sarah Hopkinson, Lena Armstrong, Florence Park, and Clytie Sayer. Marian spoke of the strong support from the parent organization and from churches—only two at that time, she said, Presbyterian and Episcopalian—which put on annual holiday parties, operettas, and minstrel shows. The school underwent many changes during her 30-yeare tenure, including consolidation with mainland schools. The Edisto Island School closed in 1971, and Marian went on to teach at St. Paul’s Academy through 1976, serving in 1977 as headmistress. But she mourned the loss to Edisto: ‘We were sorry to see the school close,’ she said, ‘because that ended the main community spirit that held us together.’

42. Capturing the History of Edisto Island: Oral History Interview with Stevens, Alice

Date:

4/12/1993

Description:

Alice Bailey Stevens’ Edisto roots go back to 1720. She was born at Blue House Plantation, where she lived until 1929, when the family moved to Brookland Plantation. In 1945, she married Johnson Stevens of Lambs Bluff Plantation on Yonges Island. They had three children. She attended high school on Edisto, graduated from Winthrop, and did advanced studies in South Carolina history at the Citadel. She taught primary school for 26 years in Charlotte, Charleston, and Yonges Island. Asked to speak about the history of transportation on Edisto, Alice noted that every facet of life was affected by transportation or the lack thereof. She detailed the early modes: long boats owned by the plantation owners that could make their way to Charleston from North Edisto through a series of cuts. Those on the south end side had a much longer way to row. Lack of transportation also affected early Islanders’ opportunities for worship; they had to travel by boat to Church Flats on Dixie Plantation until they successfully petitioned to have their own church. It limited romantic opportunities as well, as travel between islands was challenging: ‘Some just had to marry the local girls,’ Alice noted. ‘They're still doing it.’ By 1910 the Stevens Line Company began providing daily service to Edisto. Alice gave a snapshot of her lineage: In the early 1800s, her great-grandmother married Ephraim Mikell and moved to Blue House, which his son, Ephraim Jr., inherited. It began as an indigo plantation, but also grew rice, some cotton, and had an orchard. After the boll weevil destroyed the cotton industry, truck farming took over (beans, cabbage, and seed potatoes that came from Prince Edward Island). The black women would sit in a circle, cutting potatoes, and singing spirituals, some 60 years after the Civil War had ended. She also talked about other African American traditions that endured: in cooking, in the language, and in agriculture. Other reminiscences: riding horses at Sea Cloud plantation, the bounty of Blue House, Brookland’s devastation, the practices of people from the Burrough, She ended her talk with a dramatic recounting of two catastrophic events on the Island (the 1886 earthquake and the 1893 hurricane), the first of which involved a crack in the earth in which water bubbled up as if it had ‘come straight up from hell,’ the second of which told of a tragedy that left a lone family survivor ‘fierce,’ and determined never to set her foot in water again.

43. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rosa From Poliakoff

Date:

5/1/1995

Description:

Rosa From Poliakoff was born in Union, South Carolina, in 1914, to Israel and Bertha From, who emigrated from Ponevezys, Lithuania, around the turn of the twentieth century. The Froms settled in Union in 1905 and, two years later, Israel, who initially was a peddler, opened I. From Dry Goods & Notions. Rosa reports that they were the only Jewish family in Union. The Froms acquired a Torah and hosted services in their home for Jews who lived in nearby towns. Eventually, they joined Spartanburg’s B’nai Israel and donated their Torah to that congregation. Rosa notes that her mother was very observant and both parents stressed the importance of education and their Jewish identity. Rosa graduated from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta and taught in that city for three years before marrying Myer Poliakoff. She recalls how she met her future husband at a Yudedum Club dance in Columbia. They raised their three children in Abbeville, South Carolina, where they ran the D. Poliakoff Department Store, established in 1900 by Myer’s father, David. Rosa describes a From family car trip to Worcester, Massachusetts, to visit Israel’s family, the effects of the Great Depression on local Jewish merchants, and how the Poliakoffs came to settle in Abbeville. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.

44. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Robert M. Zalkin

Date:

7/14/1995

Description:

Robert M. Zalkin grew up in Charleston during the Great Depression, a grandson of Lithuanian immigrant Robert (Glick) Zalkin, who opened Zalkin’s Kosher Meat and Poultry Market on King Street. Robert served in the army during World War II, earned an engineering degree from the University of South Carolina, and married Harriet Rivkin, whose father ran a delicatessen in Columbia.

45. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Philip Schneider and Alwyn Goldstein

Date:

1/30/1995

Description:

Philip Schneider, born and raised in Georgetown, South Carolina, and Charlestonian Alwyn Goldstein, who moved to Georgetown in 1938 to open a store, discuss the town’s Jewish religious and business life. Among the merchants were Philip’s grandmother, Sally Lewenthal, and his father, Albert Schneider, who went into business with Philip’s uncle, Harry Rosen. Both interviewees recall the effects of the Great Depression in their native cities.

46. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Raymond Stern

Date:

2/25/1995

Description:

Raymond Stern grew up in Andrews, South Carolina, where his father, the son of emigrants from Eastern Europe, established Stern’s Dry Goods in 1932. Raymond recalls Melvin Hornik, a Charleston wholesaler, and discusses his childhood friends and Jewish merchants in Andrews, Lane, and Kingstree, including his uncle Charlie Tucker, who was from Baltimore. Tucker was one of the first Jewish merchants to come to this rural region between the midlands and the coast. The Sterns were members of Congregation Beth Elohim in Georgetown and, later, Raymond’s parents also attended services at Kingstree’s Temple Beth Or. After he graduated from the University of South Carolina and served four years in the air force, Raymond returned home and joined his father in the family business. He assumed control of the store around 1965. At the time of this interview, it was still open. Raymond married Florence Harris, a school teacher, and they raised four children in Andrews, Georgetown, and Charleston. Note: audio quality is poor.

47. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sam Levenson, Carolyn Baruch Levenson, and Ella Levenson Schlosburg

Date:

1995-05-24

Description:

Sam Levenson, born in 1918, and his sister Ella Levenson Schlosburg, born in 1920, talk about growing up in Bishopville, South Carolina, where about two dozen Jewish families lived, many of them relatives. The siblings and their brothers, Leonard and Jacob, were the children of Nettie Cahn and Frank Levenson, immigrants from Lithuania. Sam and Ella describe their parents and extended family members, and they discuss how their father came to own his general merchandise store in Bishopville, in which the inventory included mules. The Jews of the town spoke Yiddish, and most kept kosher. They met in the Masonic hall for services, led initially by immigrant rabbis they hired out of New York. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia, South Carolina, served as their shochet for a time. Also interviewed is Sam’s wife, Carolyn Baruch Levenson, born in 1925, in Camden, South Carolina, to Theresa Block and Herman Baruch. Herman partnered in the clothing store, Baruch & Nettles, and later, sold insurance. The three interviewees offer a number of stories that impart a sense of life in Bishopville and the region during the first half of the twentieth century. The tales range from conflicts among locals that ended in violence to wealthy antisemitic northerners wintering in Camden. For a related collection, see the Levenson-Baruch family papers, Mss. 1034-017, Special Collections, College of Charleston. See also Ella Schlosburg’s interview of May 25, 1995, and Carolyn Levenson’s interview with Debby Baruch Abrams on May 5, 1998.

48. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Herbert Keyserling

Date:

1995-07-18 and 1995-07-19

Description:

Herbert Keyserling, born in 1915 to Jennie Hyman and William Keyserling, talks about his father’s immigration to the United States in 1888 from Lithuania, and how William ended up in Beaufort, South Carolina. He describes the extended family members who also emigrated, including William’s brothers, Joseph, Michael, Mark, and Israel; their mother, Bathsheba; and their dead sister’s children, Rose and Harry Segel. William worked for and, ultimately, became full partner in the MacDonald-Wilkins Company. The partners were general merchants with several stores in the Beaufort area and they also managed cotton farms, and ginned and brokered the cotton. Although Herbert’s mother, Jennie Hyman, was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in New York, she was not very religious and didn’t keep kosher in her own home. Nevertheless, she never served pork, and she helped to organize the Sunday school and the Sisterhood at Beth Israel in Beaufort. While William was observant of the Jewish holidays, he did not attend Sabbath services until later in life, which he did “because the congregation was small and to keep up attendance.” Herbert recalls that “when I was growing up, the men and women sat on different sides of the synagogue in Beaufort,” and they prayed in Hebrew. Jewish families who lived in and around Beaufort in the 1920s and 1930s included the Epsteins, Farbsteins, Getzes, Lipsitzes, Levins, Neidichs, Pollitzers, Rabinowitzes, Rubensteins, and Sheins. Herbert discusses his siblings, Leon, Rosalyn, and Beth; his father’s philanthropic activities; the survival of the Peoples Bank in Beaufort during the Great Depression; the creation of a food co-op in the 1920s; and William’s role in building ice plants to keep produce headed to market from spoiling. Herbert is joined in this two-part interview by his wife Harriet Hirschfeld Keyserling. He offers his impression of the Ku Klux Klan in Beaufort while he was growing up, and Harriet describes attending a meeting of the Beaufort Klan with New York Times correspondent Flora Lewis in the mid-20th century. Herbert, a physician, provides a brief overview of his educational background and his service in the navy during World War II. He and Harriet married in 1944 and raised Judy, Billy, Paul, and Beth in Beaufort. For related collections, see the Keyserling family papers, Mss. 1049; the Leon H. Keyserling papers, Mss. 1052, and Tapes and Transcripts from “Land of Promise,” Mss. 1069, in Special Collections, College of Charleston.

49. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Edna Ginsberg Banov

Date:

1995-11-02

Description:

Edna Ginsberg Banov, the second of five children, was born in 1908 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Russian immigrants Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg. Pauline’s sister Freda had settled in Charleston and married Hyman Bluestein. Pauline and Isaac opened a grocery store on America Street, at the corner of Hanover, and they lived above it. Edna describes the store, their home, and the neighborhood, which was called Little Mexico. When she was about ten years old, they moved to King Street and opened a wholesale tobacco shop. The Ginsbergs were Orthodox Jews and Edna recalls attending Sunday school classes and, as a teen, Hebrew school with Rabbi Glasser. The interviewee shares stories of her siblings, Flossie, Lilla, Izzy, and Bernice; her teachers at Courtenay School; two African Americans who worked for the family; Uncle Willie Banov, whom Edna tried to match with Henrietta Givner; Fannie Warshavsky, who taught Pauline English; her children Charles, Linda, and Karen; and her grandson Michael. Edna married Milton Banov, son of Sam Banov. She talks about her father-in-law’s men’s store on upper King Street, where he also dispensed home remedies for illnesses. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.

50. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Saul Krawcheck

Date:

1995-07-06

Description:

Saul Krawcheck was born in 1926 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Esther Freda Bielsky and Jack Krawcheck, immigrants from the Bialystok region of present-day Poland. Jack ran Jack’s Clothiers, a cash-only business, located first on the corner of King and Vanderhorst streets, later moving to 313 King Street. Saul talks about his extended family, including his Krawcheck and Bielsky grandparents, aunts, and uncles. His grandfather Zorach Bielsky served as the cantor for Beth Israel for a time. Saul and his family were members of Brith Sholom, and Saul attended junior congregation every Saturday morning as a boy. The interviewee recalls Agnes Jenkins, an African-American woman who cooked for the family for sixty years. She came from Wadmalaw Island and prepared traditional southern meals for the Krawchecks, while adhering to kosher standards. Saul discusses social divisions in the local Jewish community he observed growing up and laments the self-segregation of Jews in Charleston at the time of the interview. They “have ghettoized themselves. . . It didn’t used to be that way. It has only become that way.” He notes that the Greek community has isolated itself more than any other group in Charleston. Saul describes his father’s civic activities, in particular his work in the historic preservation movement. Jack was president of the Preservation Society of Charleston for two terms, and his store at 313 King, which he bought in 1938, was the first property to undergo adaptive-use restoration, for which he received the first Carolopolis Award. Saul talks briefly about his daughters Maxine, Marcy, and Beth, and their families. For a related collection, see Jack Krawcheck business records, Mss. 1026, Special Collections, College of Charleston.