Getting to the heart of Modjeska Simkins, a leader in Columbia’s civil rights movement

“Modjeska Monteith Simkins was bigger than any box anyone tried to put her in, broader than any label anyone tried to pin on her, more fearless than any politician who dared take her on. She was uniquely a product of her time and place, a well-educated, well-off, light-skinned black woman with a spine of steel and an appetite for justice.”

From “Modjeska Monteith Simkins – A South Carolina Revolutionary” by Becci Robbins

Modjeska Monteith Simkins was many things to many people. Teacher. Health care worker. Civil rights and community activist. Advocate for the poor.

She also was strong-willed and passionate. Someone who could be both supporter and critic in the same breath, sometimes at odds with organizations she belonged to or critical of would-be supporters.

Because she was all of these things at one point or another in her long life, it is unlikely Simkins will ever be seen through the narrow lens history sometimes views its revolutionaries. But just how Simkins will be remembered is a question posed in a new 36-page booklet titled “Modjeska Monteith Simkins – A South Carolina Revolutionary” by Becci Robbins.

Less a biographical depiction as it is an overview of her activism, the booklet – produced by the S.C. Progressive Network Education Fund and made possible through a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission – strives to paint an accurate picture of the woman many knew simply as “Modjeska.” Robbins presents that picture through a striking narrative that weaves in Simkins’ words and images.

“Nothing had really been done definitively on her in print so it was just kind of sweeping up what was there,” said Robbins, the communications director for the S.C. Progressive Network, which makes its home in the Simkins house along Marion Street.

Robbins worked on the project, on and off, for about a year – listening to hours of taped interviews of Simkins, sifting through her personal papers and combing through newspaper clippings. Robbins said her main interest in wanting to write and compile such a work was as an activist who works from Simkins’ home.

“So that seemed like a logical place to start,” she said.

Born just before the turn of the 20th century and raised on a farm near Columbia in the segregated South, Simkins was the eldest of eight siblings (one sibling died in infancy). Her mother was a prominent educator, her father, a master brick mason who headed up construction projects all over the South. Since her father traveled a good bit, the family often relied on Modjeska to assume responsibilities normally reserved for adults.

Robbins said the family’s running of a farm and determination to be self-sustaining while caring for others at the same time was what struck her the most about Simkins’ formative years.

“That’s what they did. It wasn’t an ideological or religious sensibility,” Robbins said. “They went to church and after church they went to visit people who weren’t doing well. So that became the backdrop for her experience.”

Simkins went on to attend what was then Benedict school, graduated from Benedict College in 1921, became a teacher herself, married in 1929 and became active in the community.

In 1931, Simkins was hired by the S.C. Tuberculosis Association as Director of Negro Work, making her the first black person to hold a full-time, statewide public health position in South Carolina. She would spend a decade working to improve the health and quality of life for the state’s poorest, most vulnerable citizens, Robbins writes.

But Simkins’ increasing involvement with politics and the NAACP would become a problem for her boss and eventually Simkins and the Tuberculosis Association parted ways. Simkins would go on to become secretary for the NAACP’s state conference, a position she would keep for 16 years. As part of her work, she would travel, lecture and work with many of the brightest minds of the day – including Thurgood Marshall – on issues such as equal pay for black public school teachers.

That path would lead her to her work in the fight for education equality and integration in South Carolina and the inclusion of African-Americans in the state’s political process during the 1940s and 1950s. She would continue to work with Marshall, who would, along with other prominent lawyers and civil rights leaders, stay at her home along Marion Street. Robbins writes it was, “a hub of activity, an unofficial headquarters for grass-roots organizing.”

But what Simkins would become known for, as the booklet underscores, was someone who was unwilling to compromise just for political gain or short-term outcome. In short, Simkins was unafraid to speak her mind and put her convictions on the line.

“Her witty, withering denunciations of white gradualists and the black ‘ain’t ready yet conclave’ are prophetic in tone,” David Chappell, author of “A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow,” wrote of Simkins’ growing impatience for those who favored slower, more gradual change. “In dangerous times like hers, Simkins had no patience with liberal gradualism.”

And when U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings launched his high-profile “Hunger Tour,” Simkins said, “Why the Senator has become so interested in slums now when the same slums have been in Charleston all the Senator’s life and, while he served in Columbia both as Lt. Governor and as Governor, he was in spitting distance of some of the worst slums in the country, the same he just found out about.”

In 1957, Simkins was pushed out as state secretary for the NAACP over her unapologetic association with socialists. Years earlier, she had accused the organization of becoming stale and selling out. But true to form, Simkins would later quip that when it came time to pay her NAACP dues, every year she included the note: “I’m paying this under protest, but I want my membership in because when I get ready to raise hell, I don’t want to raise it free of charge.”

“Mrs. Simkins always told it like it was,” said William Gibson, the former chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors. “You never had to wonder where you stood.” Quoted in the booklet, Gibson goes on to say, “If the cause was right, Mrs. Simkins was there. She had integrity that no money could buy, or position or appointment could influence. She ran a good race, a warrior’s race, until she died.”

In fact, at a time when many community leaders would be content to retire or ride on hard-won reputations, Simkins continued supporting new causes and fighting new injustices well into her late 80s. She could often be seen at peace rallies around Columbia throughout the ’80s or guiding young activists just finding their voices.

As an adviser and frequent guest of Grow, the precursor of the S.C. Progressive Network, Robbins says many from her generation were inspired when Simkins would speak. Activist and former GROW staff member Merll Truesdale is quoted in the publication as saying: “Modjeska was an environmental activist early on in that movement. She never could figure out why politicians passed laws as if they drank different water and breathed different air than the rest of us.”

In 1990, Simkins was awarded the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor. She died in 1992 at the age of 92.

In working on the project, Robbins said she hoped to capture just some of the complexity of Simkins’ life and work.

“That’s certainly my hope,” she said. “What I (also) would hope is to get this in the hands of young women, especially young women of color. This woman was so remarkable. They need to know about her, be inspired by her as I have.”

Free copies of “Modjeska Monteith Simkins – A South Carolina Revolutionary” are available at 2025 Marion St. or can be downloaded at: www.scpronet.com/modjeskaschool/booklet.

Reach Lucas at (803) 771-8362.

This story was originally published February 21, 2015 at 8:22 PM with the headline "Getting to the heart of Modjeska Simkins, a leader in Columbia’s civil rights movement."