Series to examine government’s role in history of segregation in Columbia
Lessons learned from the realities of the past can often help determine the shape of the future.
But first there needs to be a conversation.
Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, along with a number of local entities, including Historic Columbia, Richland Library, Columbia SC 63, and the University of South Carolina’s Institute of African American Research, are set to host a four-part community conversation centered on Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.”
Rothstein’s book, published in 2017, examines how governmental policies, at the local, state and national levels, segregated metropolitan areas in the U.S., creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that require remediation. Author and Harvard University sociology professor William Julius Wilson has said “The Color of Law” is “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation.”
The first of four virtual sessions in the Columbia series will be at 6 p.m. Dec. 10, and can be accessed through Historic Columbia’s website. That initial session will focus on how Columbia neighborhoods were changed because of gentrification and other urban renewal efforts.
Among those set to be panelists on Dec. 10 are civil rights attorney and former Ward One resident Franchot Brown, civil rights activist and former Wheeler Hill neighborhood resident Joe Darby, attorney and civil rights activist Stuart Andrews, and The State’s housing reporter Rebecca Liebson.
According to information from Historic Columbia, Wheeler Hill, once a predominantly Black neighborhood not far from USC’s campus, “lost most of its African American population during the 1970s and 1980s due to the expansion of the University of South Carolina and the government sanctioned policy of eminent domain.”
Ward One, meanwhile, was an historic African American neighborhood near the city center, in the area that now includes Colonial Life Arena, among other things. Historic Columbia notes that neighborhood was largely erased by urban renewal efforts in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Devine, the veteran Columbia City Councilwoman, said she was at a National League of Cities meeting in March when she learned about “The Color of Law.” She quickly became enamored with the book and its take on the history of segregation in cities. She bought a number of copies and shared them with her colleagues on council, a well as top city staffers.
“That led to some conversations about how important understanding our history is and the role government policies actually play in equitable communities,” Devine said.
She said those conversations started gaining momentum during the summer, when there were protests and passionate calls for racial justice following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minnesota in an incident captured on video.
“Because of where we are in this country, I think this is timely because of the discussions this summer about systemic racism and racial reckoning and inequitable cities,” Devine said of the upcoming community conversation series.
Historic Columbia executive director Robin Waites said the series will be a way to use Rothstein’s work “as a lens to look at Columbia and South Carolina through an historic perspective to better understand where we are today.”
She said this is a good time to talk about the history of segregation and the government’s role in it.
“I think the events from May following the murder of George Floyd, and the community uprising around that, has brought a different level of attention to the systemic issues that underlie what is happening today,” Waites told The State. “I think there is perhaps a willingness to look at our world more critically and look at the realities of systemic racism.”
Following the Dec. 10 session, the next entries in the “Color of Law” series will come Jan. 7, Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. Rothstein will take part in the Jan. 21 session.
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
