South Carolina in Credo: Slavery and Civil Rights

A movement culminating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed first to end the slave trade, and then to abolish the institution of slavery and emancipate slaves. The movement took place in Europe, mainly in the UK, and in the USA.

A trade in Africa which started in ancient times. Slaves were sent across the Sahara and were traded in the Mediterranean by Phoenicians; Graeco-Roman traders in the Red Sea and beyond traded slaves from E Africa to Egypt and the Middle East. Additionally, the business of trading in slaves, especially the transportation of Black Africans to America from the 16th to 19th centuries.

US Supreme Court decision of 1857 which denied ‘blacks’ (African Americans) US citizenship and made slavery legal in all US territories.

In U.S. history, the executive order abolishing slavery in the Confederate States of America.

Gullah is a term that describes the language and the descendants of African slaves who live in the Carolina low country and on the coastal islands off South Carolina and Georgia.

From Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World
The Port Royal Experiment was the first large-scale, organized effort to help a group of enslaved people make the transition from slavery to freedom on American soil.

Institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. The institution of slavery extends back beyond recorded history. The enforced servitude of one person (a slave) to another or one group to another. A slave has no personal rights and is considered the property of another person through birth, purchase, or capture. Slavery has been found among many groups of low material culture, as in the Malay Peninsula and among some Native Americans; it also has occurred in more highly developed societies, such as the southern United States.

From Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World
The largest slave uprising in colonial America, the Stono Rebellion confirmed the worst fears of white South Carolinians and prompted a variety of reforms in slaveholding society.

Loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks.

Civil rights are guarantees of equal social opportunities and equal protection under the law regardless of race, religion, sex, sexuality, or other personal characteristics. These personal rights are guaranteed by the country/state to its citizens. Civil rights incorporates the belief that governments should not arbitrarily act to infringe these rights, and that individuals and groups, through political action, have a legitimate role in determining and influencing what constitutes them.

US legislation that outlawed discrimination on the grounds of a person's color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. Rights protected under the act include a person's freedom to seek employment. The act is considered the USA's strongest civil-rights legislation since Reconstruction.

US movement especially active during the 1950s and 60s that aimed to end segregation and discrimination against Blacks, as well as affirm their constitutional rights and improve their status in society. The civil rights movement was a struggle to fulfill the promise, made in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, of full citizenship and equal opportunity for African Americans

From Black Firsts
1868 • The South Carolina General Assembly was the first state legislative body with a black majority, when it met on July 6, 1868. There were eighty-seven blacks and forty whites in the lower house.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
My fellow Americans:
I am about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I want to take this occasion to talk to you about what that law means to every American.

From Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience
This tragedy took place on February 8, 1968, less than two months before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, but did not receive the same level of media coverage.

From Bridgeman Images: Peter Newark American Pictures

Credit: Female servants using brooms of bambusa on Latimer's plantation, Belton, South Carolina, 1899 (b/w photo), American Photographer, (19th century) / Private Collection / Peter Newark American Pictures / The Bridgeman Art Library

From Bridgeman Images: Peter Newark American Pictures

Credit: Field workers on the Hopkinson plantation, South Carolina, 1862 (photo), American Photographer, (19th century) / Private Collection / Peter Newark American Pictures / The Bridgeman Art Library