Museum Musings
Father Stephen Presley was born a slave in 1820. He was owned by Boykin Witherspoon, a prominent planter from Society Hill. Presley was a carpenter by trade. He married another slave by the name of Phyllis McIver Presley. Welsh Neck Baptist Church records indicate that the couple fellowshipped there as slaves but were dismissed in […]
Located on Avenue D and Friendship Street in Darlington, the Darlington Memorial Cemetery was the first cemetery created for African-Americans in the community. The cemetery began in 1890 as a five-acre cemetery established by Macedonia Baptist Church and African-American citizens in Darlington. In 1946, Bethel A.M.E. Church and St. James Methodist Church established cemeteries across […]
Arthur W. Stanley, a native of Darlington, was a WWII veteran. He served in the Pacific Theater. Stanley was the president of the Darlington Chapter of the NAACP and held the position for 40 years. He led the efforts to desegregate the Darlington County Public School System as a plaintiff in Stanley v. Darlington County […]
Dr. Daniel Collins, a Darlington native, was a 1932 graduate of the Darlington County Public Schools. He attended Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, where he received a B.S. degree in science and a D.D.S. degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. He also obtained a master’s degree in dental science from Guggenheim Clinic in […]
From “Introduction: A History of Mayo School” About the year 1890, public education in Darlington County was started for African-Americans. One of the early buildings which the state and county used for education of African-Americans was located on Pearl Street in front of the old Charles estate, now Darlington Motel. Later in the year of […]
Born in Charleston, Richard H. Humbert was a devoted resident of Darlington County. A former slave who taught himself to read and write, Humbert wrote his own pass for freedom. He was an active member of the South Carolina Republican Party and an organizer for African-Americans in 1868. In a letter to Governor R.K. Scott […]