Richard Polite was born in Charleston in 1951 and raised on Strawberry Lane before his family moved to Cannon St. near President St. After attending Burke High School, where he played football, Polite served in the U.S. Army and served one tour in Vietnam. In this interview, Polite recalls growing up in segregated Charleston and later working at the Naval Shipyard. He explains why he enjoys the job he has now held for 12 years driving a truck for the City of Charleston’s environmental services department. The job affords him the opportunity to serve and interact with the public. Hazardous working conditions and mismanagement have nevertheless led Polite and many of his coworkers to establish a union this past year. While there is no shortage of dissatisfaction among his coworkers, fear of losing their jobs in a poor economy has kept many of them on the sidelines.
Norma Hoffman-Davis (1940) was born and lived in Charleston until she left for college in 1957. Hoffman's parents were Ellen Wiley, a school teacher, and Joseph Irvin Hoffman a prominent African American physician who practiced in Charleston until he was in his eighties. In this interview, Hoffman-Davis reflects about growing up in Charleston peninsula, in a time when black and whites lived in the same neighborhoods but all institutions were segregated. She attended a catholic school for blacks, Immaculate Conception, and her family worshiped at St Peter's Catholic Church. Hoffman- Davis remembers the stories of her father, a black doctor, practicing in downtown Charleston and rural Johns Island. She tells about the health care institutions available for black people when she was a child, Cannon Street Hospital and the black section of Roper Hospital and also remembers her father's colleagues. Hoffman-Davis reflects about the mixed results that desegregation brought to the black community in terms of the access to healthcare services, as well as how changes in the healthcare industry have negatively impacted the doctor- patient relationship. Hofmann and her husband Mr. Leonard Davis lived in Detroit Michigan for thirty-eight years. After retirement they move back to the Lowcountry and reside in the house in which her parents used to live.
Anne Marie Gilliard (b. 1928) was born in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina; her father was a farmer and her mother a seamstress and washerwoman. Gilliard attended school until fourth grade and soon after started working with her mother mending and ironing clothes. In the interview, she remembers going with her sick sister to the Cannon Hospital in downtown Charleston: the trip would take all day; the building was old and dilapidated, but the nurses were kind and professional. Gilliard reflects about the penuries of living in Charleston and negotiating the relationships with white residents but also with upper-class blacks. She states, people from the rural areas distrusted both, white and black doctors and the medications they prescribed. Gilliard recalls she was a teenager when she discovered the places for dancing and drinking. She met a musician from Chicago and started singing in clubs, but when she got pregnant, he abandoned her. Later she got married to another man and had another son. The family relocated on Awendaw and she rarely made it back to Charleston.
Janie Campbell was born in Moffett near Edisto Island, South Carolina, and raised in New Jersey. There, she worked in a group home for youth with disabilities and served as Chief Shop Steward for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, (AFSCME). In 1991,she reluctantly left her job and returned to South Carolina for family reasons. After holding various jobs in the region, she began working as a sanitation worker with the City of Charleston in 1997. She was one of six women employed by the department at the time and recalls some initial embarrassment at riding on the back of a truck. With the encouragement of male coworkers, however, she became a driver. Campbell took part in two failed efforts to unionize the sanitation workers in order to bolster their pay and improve their working conditions. She discusses the poor working conditions in the department as well as the difficulties of sustaining a union in South Carolina.
Born in Newberry, South Carolina on August 21, 1933, Marlene O'Bryant-Seabrook calls herself "an educator who quilts". In 1975, Seabrook became the first African American and second women to join The Citadel as full time faculty and in 2009 she was one of the forty-four fiber artists chosen to participate in an exhibition to honor president Obama's first inauguration. Her quilt entitled "They Paved the Way" and many others she has created are featured in national and international publications and exhibits. A third generation educator, in this interview, she asserts that growing up among teachers left a indelible mark on her which guided her career choices and shaped her attitude towards life's challenges. "If I'm prepared to do something, then the rest of it does not make any difference. It never occurred to me that my being black or female should have stopped me from doing something." Seabrook attended Avery Normal Institute and then pursued higher education at South Carolina State, The Citadel, and finally the University of South Carolina where she completed her Ph.D. During her tenure at The Citadel, she was treated with respect. However,she taught mostly graduate students and only after a year of employment she was allowed to work with cadets, which she did in a very limited fashion. After leaving The Citadel in 1980, she returned to Charleston County Public School System where she worked until she retired "from employment but not from work."
Anthony Wright, renowned locally as "Tony the Peanut Man" was born in Savannah, Georgia on December 12, 1952. He grew up in the segregated Maryville community with his mother and five siblings. He attended Wallace High School and following school integration he went to Moultrie High. He was suspended for a year because he fought with a Caucasian student. He decided to quit school and instead earn his GED. In 1973 enlisted in the United States Army. After his service, Wright was employed by Gulfstream Aerospace in Savannah, and Lockheed in Charleston. When Lockheed closed, Wright struggled to get a good paying job. Mr. Marion Howard encouraged him to try selling peanuts in the Charleston market. Reluctantly, he decided to give it a try. At the beginning he was shy and other sellers in the market urged him to "be more like Mr. Ben," who was old and beloved peanut seller. Wright created a song and dance that helped him to increase sales. Wright sang, "I got some boiled and I got some toasted, got some stewed and I got some roasted. Oh, yeah, peanut man, uh-huh, catch him if you can because I got the right one baby, uh-huh." Wright's friendly and personable style made him successful and lead to appearances on television and a film. Moreover, his attitude and community involvement earned him the love and recognition of his fellow Charlestonians. Wright's entrepreneur spirit took him to write a comic book, Peanut Man. He used it as a tool to persuade children to follow their dreams. He also looked for ways to expand his business. In the interview he describes his struggles as an African-American vendor to be allowed to sell peanuts at The Citadel, Joe Riley Stadium, and the Daniel Island stadium and also the challenges he experienced when a fire destroyed his business and when a deal to sell can peanuts ended badly. In the interview he asserts being grateful for his life experiences and looking at the future with enthusiasm, "my goal is to be the number one peanut man in the world ... I just want to leave something behind that people can appreciate."
Nurse Lillian Green was born in 1934 in Charleston, South Carolina. She remembers growing up in Short Street where she felt loved and protected by her community. However, her reality was different on her daily walk to Buist School. There, she encountered the hostility and hate of white children and police officers. She remembers with affection her teachers and the programs at the Henry P. Archer Auditorium. Years later, she attended Roper’s Practical Nursing School during segregation and kept working on Roper Hospital. In the interview, Green talks in length about her memories of the 1969 Charleston Hospital Workers Strike, she states supporting the nurses’ demands but not being in conditions to stop working. She learned about the demands and actions directly from Mary Moultrie. She also remembers other activists such as William Saunders and Rev.Frederick Douglas Dawson and recalls the support provided by the Jewish community. Green share her memories about other related events including a church meeting where there was a bomb threat. Green argues Roper Hospital workers and many others around the country benefited by the strike’s achievements.
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.
