In June of 1954, South Carolinian Sarah Mae Flemming boarded a bus to go to work but was forced to disembark for sitting in the “whites only” section. She brought her lawsuit challenging her treatment a full 17 months before Rosa Parks' famous refusal to move.
If you have heard of Sarah Mae Flemming, it's likely because of the work of historian Bobby Donaldson and the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina.
Before the center was established, the conversation around civil rights history rarely included South Carolina. Over the last decade, however, the center's commitment to uncovering and documenting the civil rights movement in the state has changed that.
Through interviewing those who lived it, collecting archival materials, and pushing for public recognition of impactful moments, South Carolina and its citizens have been established as pivotal players in the civil rights movement.
"Our job is to lift those events in those moments, from the footnotes to become headlines," said Donaldson, the center's executive director.
The Center for Civil Rights History and Research provides educational programming and public engagement through programs and exhibitions, and research guidance into the university’s rich and growing collection of primary documents and oral history interviews.
In this documentary we look back at the civil rights history of South Carolina and the great work that the center has done to bring this history to life for a new generation of students and scholars.
"What the Center for Civil Rights has done in the last decade is to help realize the dreams and hopes of those who went before us."
Bobby Donaldson, Executive Director Center for Civil Rights