Hootie & the Blowfish frontman to be inducted into S.C. Hall of Fame

Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker will be inducted into the S.C. Hall of Fame, the organization announced.

Rucker will join artist Leo Twiggs and Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, the founder of Voorhees College, according to the organization’s website.

Rucker needs no introduction to the people of Columbia and especially the Five Points neighborhood where Hootie & the Blowfish started their career performing at bars and parties. For those in need of a primer, Hootie & the Blowfish’s 1994 album Cracked Rear View sold more than 16 million copies and won the band two Grammy Awards. That album was led by singles “Only Wanna Be With You” and “Let Her Cry.”

As for Twiggs, perhaps his most notable work was his series of paintings entitled Requiem for Mother Emmanuel, which were created after the 2015 murder of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, S.C.

The paintings are on display at The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg. Requiem for Mother Emmanuel is one of the museum’s featured works. Here is how the organization’s website describes Twiggs’ work:

“The Requiem for Mother Emanuel series began as a cathartic means of coping not only with the horrors of the event, but also in answer to the awe he felt in the days that followed, as he watched South Carolinians unite in what he describes as ‘the state’s most humane moment.’”

Wright, a Georgia native who lived from 1872-1906, founded Denmark Industrial School in 1897. Today, that school is known as Voorhees College, a four-year, historically black college in Denmark, S.C. For her role in starting the college, she faced “threats, attacks and arson,” according to according to Voorhees’ website.

Wright attended Booker T Washington’s Tuskegee Institute — Washington was one of her heroes — and modeled what would become Voorhees College after the institute, according to Voorhees’ website.

The induction ceremony will be held on Feb. 7 in the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 8:11 AM.