South Carolina from A to Z

In his book Grant’s Enforcer: Taking Down the Klan Guy Gugliota offers a gripping story of the early years after the Civil War and the campaign led by President Ulysses S. Grant’s attorney general Amos T. Akerman to destroy the Ku Klux Klan. Akerman, a former Georgia slaveholder and the only Southerner to serve in a Reconstruction cabinet, was the first federal lawman to propose using the Fourteenth Amendment to prosecute civil rights violations.Gugliotta uses newspapers, documents, and first-person stories, including thousands of pages of testimony under oath taken by a Congressional joint committee tasked in 1871 to study the Ku Klux Klan, a breathtaking compilation of accounts by Ku Klux targets, their attackers, local and national politicians, public officials and private citizens. The result is a vivid portrait of the Reconstruction South through the career of this surprising man.Guy joins us in conversation this week to talk about how Grant and Akerman took down the Klan.

“W “is for Woodmason, Charles (ca.1720?). Clergyman.

“W “is for Woodmason, Charles (ca.1720?). Clergyman.

“S” is for Smalls, Robert (1839-1915.) Legislator, congressman.

“R” is for Russell's Magazine (1857-1860). Russell's Magazine was the last of the southern antebellum literary magazines and arguably the best.

“P” is for Poppenheim, Mary Barnett (1866-1936) and Louisa Bouknight Poppenheim (1868-1957). Club women, social reformers.

“P “is for Pope, Thomas Harrington, Jr. (1913-1999). Attorney, legislator, historian.

“N” is for Nullification. The passage of the federal tariff law of 1828 signaled the rise of the nullification controversy in South Carolina. Led by John C. Calhoun a majority of South Carolinians eventually came to assert that a state had the right to nullify or veto federal laws and secede from the union.

“N” is for Nuclear power. The first time nuclear power was used to generate electricity in South Carolina was a small 17 megawatt experimental prototype by South Carolina Electric and Gas (and partners) at Parr from 1963 to 1967.

“C” is for Coastal plain. The coastal plain is South Carolina's largest landform region, forming two-thirds of the state and encompassing approximately 20,000 square miles.

“M” is for Morgané, Mary Elizabeth (1815-1903). Author, diarist.

“L” is for Ludwell, Phillip (1638-1723). Governor.

“H” is for Humphreys, Josephine (b.1945). Novelist.

“G” is for Gressette, Lawrence Marion (1902-1984). Legislator.

“D” is for Dutch Fork. The Dutch Fork lies in a fork between the Broad and Saluda Rivers that includes parts of the modern counties of Newberry, Lexington, and Richland.

“C” is for Cockfighting. Cockfighting is a blood sport that has existed in South Carolina from colonial times into the twenty-first century, despite the fact that it was banned by the General Assembly in 1887.

“C” is for Coastal Carolina University. Located in Horry County between Conway and Myrtle Beach, Coastal Carolina University is a public comprehensive liberal arts institution with more than 11,000 students.

“C” is for Clyburn, James Enos (b.1940). Congressman. In 2024 James Enos Clyburn won election to Congress for a seventeenth term.

“B” is for Boudo, Louis (ca. 1786-1827), and Heloise Boudo (d. 1837). Silversmiths, goldsmiths, jewelers.

“B” is for Bouchillon, Christopher Allen (1893-1968). Although largely forgotten today, Christopher Allen Bouchillon probably ranks as South Carolina’s most notable country music personality.

“B” is for Bosc, Louis Augustin Guillaume (1759-1828). Naturalist.

“B” is for Boonesborough Township. Boonesborough was one in the second wave of townships that South Carolina laid out during the mid-eighteenth century to defend her frontier from the Cherokee.

“W “is for Women's suffrage. The earliest suffrage clubs in the state were not organized until the 1890s but suffragists were beginning to receive notice.

“S” is for Slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important demographic, social, and economic events of the modern era.

“S” is for slave religion. Enslaved Africans arriving in South Carolina brought their traditional belief systems with them and until the early nineteenth century Christianity only marginally affected them and their descendants.

“S” is for slave patrols. Slave patrols were a crucial mechanism of slave control in the colonial and antebellum periods of South Carolina history.

“R” is for Russell, Donald Stewart (1906-1998). University president, governor, U.S. senator, jurist.

“P” is for Pompion Hill Chapel (Berkeley County). Built in 1763, Pompion Hill Chapel is among the finest remaining examples of the Anglican parish churches of the lowcountry.

“P” is for Pomaria Nursery. Established in Newberry District in 1840 by William Summer, Pomaria Nursery was one of the most influential and prestigious nurseries of the antebellum South.

“M” is for Moore, Samuel Preston (1813-1889). Surgeon general of the Confederacy.

“M” is for Moore, James, Sr. (ca.1650-1706. Governor.

“M” is for Moore, James, Jr. (ca.1682-1774). Governor.

“L “is for Ludvigson, Susan (b.1942). Poet.

“H” is for Hume, Sophia Wigington (ca. 1702-1774). Minister, writer.

“D” is for Durban, Pam Rosa (b. 1947). Author. A native of Aiken, Durban attended the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

“D” is for Dorn, William Jennings Bryan (1906-2005). Congressman.

“G” is for Green, Jonathan (b. 1955). Painter, printmaker.

“G” is for Greeks. Greek immigrants began arriving in South Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century and they quickly found a niche as entrepreneurs within the service sector.

“C” is for Charleston Riot (1876).

“B” is for Bishopville (Lee County; 2020 population 2,994).

“G” is for Gregorie, Anne King (1887 to 1960). Historian, teacher, author, editor.

“C” is for Clover (York County; 2020 population 6,800).

“C” is for Clinton (Laurens County; 2020 population 8,091).

“B” is for Boone, Thomas (ca. 1730-1812). Governor.

“B” is for Bonnet, Stede (1688-1718). Pirate.

“W” is for Women's clubs. The South Carolina women's club movement was a powerful force for social change.

“W” is for Wofford, Kate Vixon (1894-1954). Educator. The author of two books, Kate Vixon Wofford was nationally renowned for her expertise in rural education.

“S” is for Slave codes. South Carolina’s earliest formal code of law regarding enslaved persons (1690) borrowed heavily from statutes governing slavery on Barbados.

“S” is for Slave Badges. Slave badges served as the physical proof required to demonstrate the legal status of enslaved persons hired out by their masters.

“S” is for 6-0-1 Law (1924). The 6-0-1 Law, passed in March 1924, guaranteed at least a seven-month school term for all White children.