Marker memorializing slavery at South Carolina College
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Memorial Inscription
- Creator/Participating Person(s)
- Date created, installed or dedicated
- Historical Period
- Funded by
- Location: Institution, City, State
- Learn More About this Subject
- Tags
-
Memorial Object
-
Plaque/Marker
-
Acknowledgment of the contributions of enslaved workers at South Carolina College
-
Marker memorializing slavery at South Carolina College
-
The marker is one of two that are the result of student research and activism. The USC Vision 2020 group formed to demand systematic changes to create a more representative, inclusive, and diverse campus climate. The protesters, dressed in black, marched peacefully from Longstreet Theatre, across the Historic Horseshoe, to the Osborne administration building where they presented a list of 12 demands to Provost Joan Gabel. Among the demands was that the university acknowledge the institution was built by enslaved labor, and include that information on markers and in campus tours. Student research on slavery at South Carolina College had been conducted in previous years, and presented on a student-created website hosted by the university libraries, but the university had not issued formal acknowledgment of the issue. An ad hoc committee of the board of trustee was established in 2016 to develop two markers acknowledging the contributions of enslaved workers and the last remaining slave quarters on campus. The markers were dedicated on Dec. 5, 2017, with a ceremony at Rutledge Chapel.
-
Bronze marker placed in the bricked path between the curve of the Horseshoe drive and McKissick Museum. It is placed so that as visitors read it, they are looking out on the Horseshoe and the buildings that the enslaved workers build and maintained.
-
Slavery and the South Carolina College. The Horseshoe, the original campus of the University of South Carolina (established in 1801 as the South Carolina College), still appears much as it did in the mid-1800s. Its buildings and historic wall were substantially constructed by slave labor and built of slave-made brick. Enslaved workers were essential to the daily operations of the college, whether they were owned by the faculty or the college itself, or hired from private citizens. Enslaved people lived in outbuildings, one of which still stands behind what is now the President’s House. The University of South Carolina recognizes the vital contributions made by enslaved people.
-
Ad hoc committee on slavery markers
-
USC Vision 2020
-
5 December 2017
-
University of South Carolina
Position: 1936 (2 views)