Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here nestled off the beaten path in the heart
Speaker 1: of the Gullageechee Sea Islands of South Carolina's Low Country
Speaker 1: is an American landmark that many have never heard of.
Speaker 1: Situated between rich salt marshes and the Atlantic Coast and
Speaker 1: shaded by moss Leyden Live Oaks, The Penn Center, located
Speaker 1: for over one hundred and fifty years on Saint Helena
Speaker 1: Island in Beaufort County, is a historic site of African
Speaker 1: American education, culture, social justice, and community development that continues
Speaker 1: its work today. In eighteen sixty two, six months before
Speaker 1: President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and three years
Speaker 1: before the Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished slavery, a group of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian missionaries and abolitionists founded the Pennsi
Speaker 1: School on Saint Helena. This was part of what's called
Speaker 1: the Port Royal Experiment. In South Carolina. Plantation owners had
Speaker 1: built an economic empire on enslaved labor. It was the
Speaker 1: first state to seed from the Union, as sparking the
Speaker 1: Civil War and becoming an immediate target of Union forces.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty one, the US Navy seized the Port
Speaker 1: Royal Sound from Confederate troops. The following year, the plantation
Speaker 1: owners fled the Sea islands, reluctantly, abandoning their prized crop
Speaker 1: of world renowned cotton and liberating somewhere from ten thousand
Speaker 1: to thirty two thousand enslaved people. Seeing a need and
Speaker 1: an opportunity, the US opened the area to a number
Speaker 1: of public and private programs aiming to figure out how
Speaker 1: to reform a social and economic structure based on enslavement
Speaker 1: into a free society. It was an early and less
Speaker 1: restricted form of reconstruction. Northern abolitionists and humanitarians donated funds
Speaker 1: to help freed people by former plantation land at reasonable
Speaker 1: rates and establish farms, hospitals, and schools. The Penn School,
Speaker 1: and named after Quaker activist William Penn, was the first
Speaker 1: school founded in a Confederate state for the sole purpose
Speaker 1: of educating freed people. It began in the living room
Speaker 1: of the abandoned Oaks Plantation before the first schoolhouse was built,
Speaker 1: and eventually grew to become a fifty acre campus, including
Speaker 1: nineteen now historic buildings. The land was donated by a
Speaker 1: freed entrepreneur by the name of Hasting Gant. The first
Speaker 1: classes were taught by white abolitionists Laura Town and Ellen Murray,
Speaker 1: and briefly by Charlotte Forton, who was the first African
Speaker 1: American teacher at Penn. The earliest curriculum followed the New
Speaker 1: England eurocentric model of socialized education that included reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history,
Speaker 1: and music. Sixty seven, South Carolina had a majority of
Speaker 1: black registered voters. Black candidates were winning elections, and the
Speaker 1: Penn School received public funding, but the post war reconstruction
Speaker 1: era in the state was rocky, and a decade later
Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws had suffused the South. The school struggled
Speaker 1: but stayed afloat thanks to private donations. In the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, RASA. B. Cooley and Grace House, two other
Speaker 1: northern white women, revised the curriculum to follow Booker T.
Speaker 1: Washington's Hampton tuscg model of industrial education, including various trades
Speaker 1: and agricultural sciences. They excised some classical studies like algebra
Speaker 1: and Latin, and added courses such as masonry, carpentry, and
Speaker 1: the domestic arts up to the end of World War II,
Speaker 1: the state of South Carolina only required that education for
Speaker 1: Black Americans go through the seventh grade level, but Penn
Speaker 1: provided schooling through the twelfth grade of plus adult education
Speaker 1: classes as well. However, by the late nineteen forties, the
Speaker 1: population of Saint Helena had dwindled significantly. Many Islanders and
Speaker 1: young people in particular, were leaving isolated Beeford County to
Speaker 1: seek opportunities in larger cities. In response, the board of
Speaker 1: trustees at Penn redefined the purpose of the school and
Speaker 1: launched the Penn Community Service Center in nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: including services like daycare, a hangout space for tines, and
Speaker 1: health clinic. They also offered midwife training beyond that, Throughout
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and sixties, Penn Center became a nexus
Speaker 1: for civil rights activism and social justice, not just for
Speaker 1: South Carolina but for the entire nation. Being isolated out
Speaker 1: among the marshes, it was one of the few places
Speaker 1: in the Jim Crow South where interracial groups of activists
Speaker 1: could convene in integrated facilities, including overnight, without the threat
Speaker 1: of legal consequences or outside violence. Penn Center hosted human
Speaker 1: rights conference with groups including the NAACP, the World Peace Foundation,
Speaker 1: the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Speaker 1: the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, and the Peace Corps,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. It was a place to
Speaker 1: organize and strategize. A former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, in
Speaker 1: his role as leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Speaker 1: introduced doctor Martin Luther King Junior to the serenity and
Speaker 1: security of Penn Center. Between nineteen sixty four and nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, King visited Penn five times, along with other
Speaker 1: luminaries of the civil rights movement and countless unnamed activists.
Speaker 1: It became a sort of refuge for King outside of
Speaker 1: the pressure of being a civil rights leader on the
Speaker 1: national stage. King composed many of his speeches at Penn,
Speaker 1: including his I Have a Dream speech, which he wrote
Speaker 1: while staying in the Hasting Gant Cottage. He also spoke
Speaker 1: there about his broader concerns outside of the civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: which included capitalism and the economic and equality of these
Speaker 1: some forty million Americans living in poverty, and his then
Speaker 1: unpopular anti war stance regarding Vietnam. During a rare formal
Speaker 1: speech at Penn he laid out a set of what
Speaker 1: he called the inseparable triplets, three intrinsically connected evils in America, racism,
Speaker 1: excessive materialism, and militarism. He urged his fellow leaders there
Speaker 1: to consider and address all three in their attempts to
Speaker 1: elicit change. The organizers who gathered at Penn Center didn't
Speaker 1: always agree on the best courses of action, and although
Speaker 1: it is remote, they still had to exercise caution to
Speaker 1: keep each other safe, perhaps especially doctor King, who was
Speaker 1: very much in the public eye and was assassinated in
Speaker 1: April nineteen sixty eight in Memphis, Tennessee, just four months
Speaker 1: after his last meeting at Penn Center, and the day
Speaker 1: after he had told striking sanitation workers, We've got to
Speaker 1: give ourselves to this struggle. Until the end. After the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights era, the center continued its work, hosting retreats
Speaker 1: for churches and other organizations, training peace corps agricultural workers,
Speaker 1: promoting environmental sustainability, and serving as an educational site for
Speaker 1: black history and culture. The Old School campus was added
Speaker 1: to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: The original trade class shop, built in nineteen twelve, was
Speaker 1: rededicated in nineteen ninety nine to honor doctor York W. Bailey,
Speaker 1: who attended the Penn School as a child in the
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, earned his medical degree from Howard University,
Speaker 1: and returned home to become Saint Helena's first black physician. Today,
Speaker 1: the shop houses a museum, the showcases and archive of
Speaker 1: rare photographs of African Americans, as well as artifacts related
Speaker 1: to Glagichi history and culture. In twenty sixteen, Penn's then
Speaker 1: executive director, doctor Rodell Lawrence wrote for The Hill quote,
Speaker 1: most Americans came from somewhere else to this continent, and
Speaker 1: Penn Center provides us with a direct link to the
Speaker 1: African origins of slaves that occupied America's southeastern seaboard. It
Speaker 1: is a window to a place in which many African
Speaker 1: Americans emerged from bondage and set out on a new
Speaker 1: journey as free men and women. It is a place
Speaker 1: and a time to celebrate. Penn Center vividly embodies the
Speaker 1: American ideal of liberty and justice for all, and in
Speaker 1: every sense is a true historic national monument. To that end,
Speaker 1: President Barack Obama named a swath of Beaufort County, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: including the Penn Center, a national historical monument to the
Speaker 1: Reconstruction Era, a week before he left office in January
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen. It's now part of the Reconstruction Era
Speaker 1: National Historic Park managed by the National Park Service. Today
Speaker 1: you can visit the center to explore the museum and
Speaker 1: take a tour. Penn hosts lots of local events too,
Speaker 1: including the Heritage Days Festival in early November of every year,
Speaker 1: celebrating the area's Gllageechee cultural legacy with an educational symposium,
Speaker 1: a space for artists and authors, craft and genealogy workshops, music,
Speaker 1: and a fish fry and oyster roast. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Pen Center, a little known haven
Speaker 1: of the Civil Rights Movement on how stuffworks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Kerry Tatreu. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
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