Historic Columbia launching podcast to contextualize State House monuments
Context is key, and often complicated, when it comes to history.
And that is demonstrably the case when it comes to some of the oft-controversial monuments on the grounds of the South Carolina State House. But now, a leading history-focused nonprofit is looking to use a podcast to provide insight into some of the statues on the north lawn of the State House, and the building itself.
On Feb. 17 — which happens to be the 156th anniversary of the burning of Columbia at the end of the Civil War — Historic Columbia will launch “Historically Complex,” a four-part podcast series from University of South Carolina associate professor of architectural history Dr. Lydia Brandt.
“The podcast is an opportunity to reach the public in a really different way,” Brandt told The State. “It has been interesting to me to have this conversational process.”
In 2019, Historic Columbia launched a campaign to begin contextualizing the many monuments on the State House grounds, some of which have troublesome histories tied to race and segregation. The nonprofit hosted a number of in-person tours of the grounds, and held focus group meetings to gauge feedback on the monuments. It also developed a web-based tour, at historiccolumbia.org/online-tours/state-house-monuments-tour, that gives users information about the placement of each monument, background that a viewer would not glean simply by passively viewing it.
Take, for instance, the statue of late U.S. Sen. and Gov. Benjamin Tillman, which stands on the north side of the State House, right near Gervais Street, and is perhaps the most controversial monument on the grounds. The Historic Columbia web-based tour offers the basic facts about the statue — when it was installed (1940), who paid for it (the General Assembly and private donations), etc. But it also is strident in detailing Tillman’s legacy of racism, noting that he was an “avowed white supremacist who called for accused Black rapists to be lynched and regularly boasted of his participation in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre, where he claimed to have ‘shot negroes and stuffed ballot boxes.’”
Brandt discusses the Tillman monument in the fourth episode of the podcast series, of which The State received an advance copy. She notes, among other things, that the statue of Tillman was dedicated 22 years after his death, and points out it includes a list of people who fundraised to erect it.
“They chose to celebrate Tillman after his death, just as Black activists fought for their civil rights that politicians like Tillman had denied them,” Brandt says on the podcast. “Over the 1930s, Black people had gained traction advocating for anti-lynching legislation, equal access to jobs, and their right to vote, rights guaranteed to them during Reconstruction, and which men like Ben Tillman had actively suppressed.”
Historic Columbia Executive Director Robin Waites said she hopes the podcast, funded in part through a South Carolina Humanities grant, will add another layer to the nonprofit’s efforts to contextualize the State House grounds.
“This is kind of the next step in the process of increasing access to context about the monuments,” Waites said.
Brandt is the author of the 2016 book “First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington’s Mount Vernon in the American Imagination.” She also has written a guidebook to the State House grounds, which will be published by the USC Press later this year.
Brandt and Historic Columbia are hopeful that people will listen to the podcast when they are on the State House grounds, and look at the monuments and other markers as Brandt is describing them.
“That’s the ideal way to participate with the podcast,” Brandt said. “I also describe the monuments enough that you can just be listening to it in your car or wherever. Or, you could be following along with the online State House tour from Historic Columbia’s website. And that’s a really great resource, because it has all these historic photos of the things I’m describing and what they looked like over time.”
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, the Capital City’s first Black mayor, said he’s listened to the new podcast and thinks it will be a valuable resource for those visiting the State House grounds.
“This content details that these stone edifices are not just static icons, but serve as edifying windows into the prevailing cultural mindsets of the times in which they were set out before the public eye,” Benjamin said. “As Dr. Brandt cogently explains, these monuments are not just reminders of the events or personas they commemorate, but the attitudes and sometimes troubling racial mindsets of those who placed them and sought to forever set in stone expressions of their outlooks.”
Lee Snelgrove heads up One Columbia for Arts and Culture, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the arts in the city, including various forms of public art. Snelgrove said he was deeply impressed with the “Historically Complex” podcast series.
“I think they are fantastic,” Snelgrove said, matter of factly. “You will be able to walk onto the State House grounds with this podcast and really get context you cannot get from the physical structures themselves, the building and the monuments. (Brandt) really provides an amazing amount of context in a short period of time.
“After listening to them, I won’t walk onto the State House grounds the same anymore. I’ll always think about the facts she provides.”
Each of the four episodes are relatively brief, clocking in at about 10 minutes apiece. Collectively, the series is 41 minutes long. When the podcast launches on Feb. 17, it will be available to steam at historiccolumbia.org/podcast, and on services like iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
