Maybe I should have known that. But then, I was out of the country in 1963.
I saw this in the lobby of the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. It’s part of a display marking the 50th anniversary of that key year in the civil rights movement.
I’ve heard the “Thank God for Mississippi” line so many times, used to make us South Carolinians feel better about our economic situation, educational attainment, etc.
But I never realized it was used this way.
If you want to see the exhibit at the convention center, hurry. It just runs through the end of this month.
I didn’t realized it went back that far, either. I do know that once South Carolina’s leaders realized they were going to lose the court battle to stay segregated, that they decided to do so peacefully, stating that they did not want the violence in Mississippi to occur here. That stance is included in documents detailing the University of South Carolina’s desegregation. There’s an exhibit on it at the South Caroliniana Library through the Dec. 20: http://tinyurl.com/nerpcvx
The exhibit at the convention center also includes some items from the Caroliniana’s Hayes Mizell collection.
Is this the same exhibit or a similar exhibit to the one that was on display in the lowest floor of the RIchland County Public Library? I found those photographs to be very interesting.
RCPL had a different one.