Ella Johnson was born on June 22nd,1917 in Darlington, South Carolina (1). She would live there until 1939 when she moved to New York City to perform with her brother, Buddy Johnson. Buddy was two years older than her and the lead band member at the…

Susan Clemson Richardson was born into slavery at Fort Hill around 1828. Both her mother, Daphne, and her father, Bill Lawrence, were enslaved by the Calhouns. Her mother worked in the Fort Hill Plantation House as a wet nurse to her enslaver’s first…

Born a free woman around 1740, Menemin was captured and sold into slavery in Africa. She was then forced to take the tumultuous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to South Carolina where she was purchased by her enslavers, the Calhoun family. Mememin…

As the granddaughter of Thomas and Frances “Franny” Fruster, and grandmother of the first Fruster family Clemson graduate (Eric Young) Juanita G. Webb’s domestic service at Clemson brings us insight into the experiences of Black Women in the area at…

In response to the Student League for Black Identity’s efforts to have the Confederate flag and the playing of “Dixie” removed from Clemson athletics, a petition boasting over three-thousand student signatures made it to the floor of the student…

In response to the efforts of the Student League for Black Identity (SLBI) to remove the Confederate flag and the playing of “Dixie” at Clemson University athletic events, a large movement to retain these symbols as what they saw to be an essential…

In the Fall of 1968, racial tensions ran high throughout the state of South Carolina. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in early April, and the campus at SC State in Orangeburg had just experienced an outbreak of…

Before at least 1930, the use of several controversial figures and traditions could be seen at Clemson football games, both home and away. These included the tradition of Tiger Band playing Dixie, the mascot known as “The Country Gentleman”, and the…

The experience for Black students at Clemson can be best summarized as one of resistance. During these times, white students and African Americans fought with both fist and movements. In 1968 the Student League for Black Identity was…

During the events of 1969’s SLBI walk-out, The Tiger, Clemson’s student-run newspaper since 1907 covered that and many connected events on and around campus. While The Tiger was criticized by local news sources as being liberally biased and…