Meet the Black women behind Richland County’s historic sites that honor Black women

I had to say it - last week’s State newspaper story, ‘Richland County had more monuments to Black women than anywhere else, researcher says’, while lifting up the historic sites that commemorate Black women, managed to exclude the vital backstories of the key Black women who fought to save them in the first place. I am honored that my conversation with The State’s editor led to this invitation to talk about those Black women. Time to tell the full story.

This op-ed focuses on the preservation of historic sites, as opposed to monuments, signage, and other forms of public memorialization, as saving historic sites is the most costly and the most difficult. They are crown jewels of cultural tourism programs that give visitors a reason to start their exploration of historical markers, monuments and street signs.

Some say that Black women speaking up are self-serving and attention-seeking. Others say “until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” In my view, in order for the public to understand why there are so many monuments to Black women in Richland County, they must know that Black women like Cece Byers Johnson, who worked to develop the Mann-Simons Cottage into a museum of African-American culture and founded the Jubilee Festival of Heritage; Black women like myself, who fought to save the Modjeska Simkins House from demolition; Black women like Marie Barber Adams, who preserved the Harriet Barber House; like Dr. Grace Jordan McFadden, who recorded interviews with civil rights leaders, paved the way for the distinction that Richland County now enjoys as first in the nation in recognition of Black women.

The finished sites contributed greatly to increases in research, increased public knowledge of Celia Mann, Modjeska Simkins and Harriet Barber, and the expanded and well resourced public programs on Black history, local civil rights history and women’s history now available in the Midlands.

All of this was done at a time when many of the support mechanisms that assist community preservations today in the county were in their infancy.

CeCe Byers-Johnson and the Mann-Simons Cottage

CeCe Byers-Johnson, who was curator at the Mann-Simons Cottage and launched the Jubilee Festival of Heritage, passed away in 2012. Her name has virtually disappeared from public memory in connection to the work at Mann-Simons, but she was a pivotal figure there. Longtime friend Ernestine Middleton noted: “CeCe’s strong, intelligent and independent feminism was at the core of her being. She would laugh heartily and had a great sense of humor, as depicted in the poem For Sassy Cecelia by her friend and SCETV producer, the late Listervelt Middleton.”

The Mann-Simons Cottage, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, was the first site connected to a Black woman that was put on the National Register of Historic Places in Richland County. At the time of its nomination, after generations of family ownership, it was owned by the Columbia Housing Authority. The house then came under management by the Richland County Historic Preservation Commission (RCHPC formed in 1963), which owned the building, and Historic Columbia Foundation (HCF formed in 1961). In 1978, CeCe led the development of the Mann-Simons Cottage, with the Richland County Board, the Historic Columbia Board and an African American Advisory Board. The Mann Simons Cottage operated with relative independence: it raised money and had its own letterhead, an example of which is found in the papers of I. DeQuincey Newman, one of the site’s donors. Cece’s determination was to create a museum of African American History, and a home where Black people could celebrate their culture. She brought authors like Toni Cade Bambara, Ntozake Shange, George Subira and other high caliber writers to Columbia, and founded the Jubilee Festival of Heritage, which continues to operate today, with the site operated by the Historic Columbia Foundation. A June 1983 Black Enterprise magazine article stated that at the time, the Mann-Simons Cottage was ‘the only Black historic house museum in South Carolina.”

In May 1994, RCHPC passed a resolution which deeded away all four of its properties, with the Mann-Simons Cottage going to the city of Columbia. With this transfer, RCHPC dissolved. With this action, Richland County lost Mann-Simons as an institution with its own letterhead, and a Black woman who created a headquarters for Black culture. As visual artist Seitu Amenwasu, who served during the 1980’s as a docent at the Cottage said, ‘Nothing has risen in Columbia to take its place’.

Catherine Fleming Bruce and the Modjeska Simkins House

I had the opportunity to meet and know Mrs. Simkins during interviews with her for a documentary I did on the history of Black Columbia. After her death, and seeing the house with a City of Columbia demolition notice and listed on the South Carolina Most Endangered Historic sites list, despite its 1994 listing on the National Register, I formed a committee to purchase and restore the building. The committee was predominately Black and brown people. We succeeded in restoring the building and opening it as a civil and human rights center, working for 10 years to do so, due to the lack of funding committed to preservation projects.

Due to lack of resources, the property was transferred to the Historic Columbia Foundation after 2007, recently reinterpreted and reopened along with the University of South Carolina Civil Rights Center. My work came with many costs, many slings and arrows — but I view them all as labor pains that resulted in something special that continues to bear fruit and to inspire. The full story of the preservation of the Simkins House can be found in the book The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Social Movements. This historic home has been added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. My current project, the restoration of the historic Dr. Cyril O. Spann Medical Office, despite impacts from the COVID pandemic, is moving forward.

Marie Barber Adams and the Harriet Barber House

The Harriet Barber House was put on the National Register in 1986, part of a multiple property submission that focused on preservation in the Lower Richland area. Marie Barber Adams, the co-author of African-Americans of Lower Richland County, worked along with her sisters to preserve this building at a time when few resources were available. Upon hearing of the Simkins House renovation in the press, Marie contacted me, and I provided what insights I could. She and her family were able to complete the restoration project with help from Richland County, and special thanks to then Councilwoman Bernice Scott, who advocated for resources to preserve sites in Lower Richland.

The Richland County Conservation Commission provided funds for three consecutive years to restore the exterior of the Barber House. Senator Darrell Jackson acquired additional funding through the SC Legislature to complete the interior work in 2009. It took 10 years to complete the restoration project with the assistance of Mr. Herbert DeCosta Jr. of Charleston and Mr. Johnny Martin of Columbia (who also both worked on the Simkins House restoration). Since that time, Marie and her sisters have welcomed visitors from across the country and from Canada, Argentina, France and the United Kingdom. This historic home has recently been added to the new Reconstruction Era National Historic Network, an initiative associated with the National Park Service.

Another Black woman trailblazer in the preservation of civil rights history was Dr. Grace Jordan McFadden, who died in 2004.

In addition to the understanding that the work of these Black women preservationists in the 1980s and 1990s made it possible for Richland County to achieve its level of national success in Black women’s monuments, we must understand two things. First, the main impediment to further preservation is funding. Without it, decisions about what will be preserved will be left to those who have access to large amounts of capital, like private developers, and those who have the power and influence to earmark funds towards projects. Neither of these paths will help many of the vulnerable projects that can’t wait decades for support. Second, it is important to support community activists who lift up preservation projects not on the radar of others, in addition to those projects connected to our major institutions. We need people who believe in Black women. This is how we will continue to lead and heal the gaps of racism, sexism and classism in our community.