Walter Edgar's Journal South Carolina Public Radio

In his book, The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration, David Nicholson tells the story of his great-grandparents, Casper George Garrett and his wife, Anna Maria, and their family.A multigenerational story of hope and resilience, The Garretts of Columbia is an American history of Black struggle, sacrifice, and achievement - a family history as American history, rich with pivotal events viewed through the lens of the Garretts's lives.

On the Journal this week we will be talking with Robert James Fichter about his book, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776.Fitcher says that despite the so-called Boston Tea Party in 1773, two large shipments of tea from the East India Company survived and were ultimately drunk in North America. Their survival shaped the politics of the years ahead, impeded efforts to reimburse the company for the tea lost in Boston Harbor, and hinted at the enduring potency of consumerism in revolutionary politics.

This week we talk with Claudia Smith Brinson about her new book, Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams (2023, USC Press). Claudia's rich research, interviews, and prose, offer a firsthand account of South Carolina's fight for civil rights and tells the story of Cecil Williams's life behind the camera. The book also features eighty of William’s photographs.Cecil Williams is one of the few Southern Black photojournalists of the civil rights movement. Born and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Williams worked at the center of emerging twentieth-century civil rights activism in the state, and his assignments often exposed him to violence perpetrated by White law officials and ordinary citizens. Williams's story is the story of the civil rights era.

In this episode, we'll talk with Prof. Kevin Kokomoor about his book, La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories.Spanish sailors discovering the edges of a new continent, greedy, violent conquistadors quickly moving in to find riches, and Catholic missionaries on their search for religious converts: these forces of Spanish colonialism in Florida helped spark British plans for colonization of the continent and influenced some of the most enduring traditions of the larger Southeast. The key history presented in the book challenges the general assumption that whatever is important or interesting about this country is a product of its English past.

This week we have a fun conversation with author George Singleton about his new book Asides: Occasional Essays on Dogs, Food, Restaurants, Bars, Hangovers, Jobs, Music, Family Trees, Robbery, Relationships, Being Brought Up Questionably, Et Cetera. It's a collection of fascinating and curious essays, in which Singleton explains how he came to be a writer (he blames barbecue), why he still writes his first draft by hand (someone stole his typewriter), and what motivated him to run marathons (his father gave him beer). In eccentric world-according-to-George fashion, Laugh-In’s Henry Gibson is to blame for Singleton’s literary education, and Aristotle would’ve been a failed philosopher had he grown up in South Carolina.

Founded in 1749, Charleston, South Carolina's (KKBE) is one of the oldest congregations in America, and is known as the birthplace of American Reform Judaism. Their sanctuary is the oldest in continuous use for Jewish worship in America. The congregation's president, Naomi Gorstein, and Harlan Greene, historian, join us to trace the history of Jewish life in Charleston, which goes right back to the founding of the city. We'll also talk about the evolution of the KKBE congregation and their plans to celebrate the 275th anniversary of its founding in 2024.