Get the name right of the guy for whom bridge is named

APRIL 16, 2012 — Imagine my surprise on a trip to local strawberry fields over the weekend when we spied a sign for the “Easu Jenkins Memorial Bridge” ” across Church Creek between Johns and Wadmalaw islands.

At first, I didn’t think I saw it right. “Easu Jenkins?,” I wondered. “Surely the Highway Department couldn’t have made that whopping of a mistake.”

Yes, it did. Boneheads.

Esau Jenkins (1910-1972) was a Johns Island native and local civil rights hero for his life’s work to improve economic, health and political conditions for residents of the Sea Islands of South Carolina.

Time to honor this national hero from SC

MARCH 23, 2012 — A generation of South Carolinians — maybe two — have grown up without knowing much about a home-grown civil rights hero with a national reputation. It’s high time they did.

Meet U.S. District Judge J. Waties Waring (1880-1968), a native son who called for the crippling shackles of segregation to be stripped from South Carolina at a time when blacks and whites had to drink from different water fountains.

The past thrives in SC

… The way today’s GOP leaders in South Carolina are talking about health care is straight out of the “induce fear” playbook that naysayers have been using here for years. In the 1820s, John C. Calhoun developed the theory of nullification to promote the rights of states to nullify federal laws. Southerners used charged language based in nullification in the days leading to the Civil War. And they invoked the same kind of divisive rhetoric for decades to prop up segregation and Jim Crow laws.

In essence, South Carolinians have travelled 200 years in time, but are still spitting, steaming and bellyaching about the role of the federal government with states….

Legislature should back off on search, I.D. bills

FEB. 5, 2010 – Something’s fishy in Columbia with two bills that directly impact our constitutional rights.

imagesIn one, state lawmakers want to start so-called “warrantless searches” to allow police to search people on parole or probation without the hassle of getting a search warrant. In another, legislators want to require photo identification for voting, a practice that could dampen turnout among more than 178,000 people who don’t have such identification cards. Click headline for more …

Rockwell painting nudged America

JAN. 18, 2010 – With the eyes of the nation this week on civil rights, let’s turn our focus to a painting inspired by a Louisiana event that astonished America when it came out 46 years ago.