Nestled off the beat path in the heart of theGullah / GeecheeSea Islands of South Carolina ’s lowcountry , is an American treasure wait to be break by lucky vacationer and passersby . Situated beneath ancient moss - loaded springy oaks and tuck between glimmering salt Reginald Marsh and the Atlantic coast , Penn Center , place for 156 years on sleepy St. Helena Island in Beaufort County , may be the most important African - American diachronic turning point and educational - cultural centre you ’ve believably never heard of .
Penn and Reconstruction
lay down six month before President Abraham Lincoln publish theEmancipation Proclamationand three year beforethe 13th amendmentlegally get rid of slavery , the Penn School was founded in 1862 by Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian missionaries as a main component of thePort Royal Experiment , an early example ofReconstructionin progress , even as the Civil War lambaste into the spring of 1865 . Financed from donations conjure up byabolitionists , Penn ( name after Quaker activistWilliam Penn ) was the first schoolhouse found in a Confederate state for the exclusive purpose of civilize ex-wife - slaves .
What start in the support room of the abandoned Oaks Plantation before the first schooltime house was built , finally grow to become a 50 - acre campus ( the land was donated by freedman and future man of affairs , Hastings Gantt ) with 19 now - historic buildings , admit theYork W. Bailey Museum , which showcases an archive of rare photographs of African - Americans as well as scarce artifact link up to Gullah / Geechee story and culture .
In 1862 when the U.S. Navyseizedthe Port Royal Sound from Confederate troop , flush orchard proprietor fled St. Helena and the surrounding Sea Islands , reluctantly abandoning theirprized cropof world - renownedSea Island cottonand emancipate between 10,000 and32,000 slaves , who abruptly find themselves free and autonomous . Northern abolitionists and humanitarians saw the need to educate the freed hard worker in hopes that their efforts would become a exemplar for helping formerly enslave people gain citizenship .
The first classes were taught by white-hot abolitionistsLaura Towne and Ellen Murrayand briefly byCharlotte Forten , who was the first northern African - American teacher at Penn . The earliest curriculum followed the New England , euro - centrical model of " socialised " Education Department that include reading , writing , arithmetical , geographics , history and music .
In the early 1900sRossa B. Cooley and Grace House , two other northern white womanhood , revised the curriculum to watch over Booker T. Washington ’s Hampton - Tuskegee framework of industrial teaching . ( Cooley , a lensman , documented the school in more than 3,000 photo that now reside in the Penn School collection ) . Under the tutelage of Cooley and House , classical survey like algebra and Latin were eliminated and course such as masonry , carpentry and the domestic arts were added . Although up to the death of World War II , the province of South Carolina require that African - Americans be prepare only through the seventh grade , Penn put up schooling through the 12th grad and offered adult educational activity classes as well .
By the late 1940s , the population of St. Helena had dwindle importantly , as aboriginal islanders , young citizenry in special , moved from sequestrate Beaufort County to states in the North , or sought better exercise opportunities in the larger urban center of the South . In response , the Board of Trustees at Penn redefined the function of the schoolhouse , and launched the Penn Community Service Center in 1948 . As such , Penn Center became one of the few place in theJim CrowSouth where interracial activist group could convene overnight in integrated facilities without the terror of furiousness or legal consequences .
The Civil Rights Movement
During the fifties and ' 60 , under the guidance of devout Quakers , Courtney and Elizabeth Siceloff , the Penn Center became a major , though somewhat private , facilitator for civic rights activism and societal justness , not just for South Carolina , but for the entire body politic . In the 2014 book,“Penn Center : A History Preserved , " authors Orville Burton and Wilbur Cross tell apart us that the Siceloffs listened to the islander ’s concerns and give way aside from the condescending notion that the black community needed to be " teach " citizenship to become " civilized " and " Americanize . " And that they came to understand " the Christian commitment and theological worldview of the southerly African Americans beforeMartin Luther King , Jr.brought it to the attention of the world . "
During the sixties , Penn Center host legion mixed human rights conference with radical including the NAACP , the World Peace Foundation , theSRC , SCCHR , CORE , the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC ) , Student Non - Violent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC ) and the Peace Corps , to name a few . Because of its set-apart location , these integrated groups could stealthily receive to organise and strategize in a clandestine circumstance , safely under the radio detection and ranging of local authorities , the public and the press .
It was former Atlanta mayorAndrew Young , in his role as leader of the SCLC , who present Martin Luther King , Jr. to the tranquility and protection of the coastal backwater that was Penn Center . King and his lieutenant , other luminary of thecivil right movementand countless unidentified activist met with the SCLC at Penn five times between 1964 and 1967 . It became a bastion of ataraxis and a place of refuge where King could slow down , breathe freely andexpress himself openly , saying thing in front of groups at Penn that he could n’t say on the internal stage . Folk vocalizer Joan Baez , who attended a retreat in 1966,recalledin " Penn Center : A History maintain , " King state that " he could n’t take the pressure any longer , that he just wanted to go back … and prophesy in his little church service , and he was tired of being a leader . "
B. B. King compose many of his speeches at Penn , including his " I Have a Dream " speech communication , which he wrote while stay in theHastings Gantt cottagewhere he often retire . At Penn , King was able to voice publicly hisunpopularanti - Vietnam stance and his concern for the 40 million Americans living in impoverishment which led to his strongly held opinion that there was something intrinsically incorrect with capitalism . It was at the Penn Center that King excuse what threatened theBeloved Community , the " three canonic evils in America : the wickedness of racism , the immorality of exuberant materialism , the evil of militarism , " which he called the " inseparable triplets " that any movement would necessarily have to address so as to elicit variety .
consort to Burton and Cross , even though Penn Center was remote , it still faced confrontation from some bloodless people regarding King ’s visits .
Walter Mack , a next executive director of Penn , told the authors how the biotic community worked together to keep King out of the public centre : " The record of him coming was keep secret , even from the local sheriff … They would n’t recite anybody . You never knew who would want to pain Dr. King . "
Joseph McDomick , retired Magistrate of St. Helena Island , said , " Even when he come here , it had to be kept secret … We could n’t give notice any law enforcement multitude because we did n’t know who would be in that trivial group that would be after doing him in . "
In December 1967 King hold up his 5th and final meeting with the SCLC at Penn . They discussed thePoor People ’s Campaign , and King told the assemblage , " I do n’t know if I ’ll see all of you before April , but I send you forth . "
Four months later on , on April 4 , 1968 , he was assassinate at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis , Tennessee , the Clarence Day after he ’d toldstriking sanitation proletarian , " We ’ve get to give ourselves to this battle until the remnant . "
Late lowcountry authorPat Conroy , who serve high school in Beaufort , South Carolina and wrote lovingly and extensively about the Sea Islands in books like " The Water Is Wide " and " The Prince of Tides , " and who ’d met Martin Luther King , Jr. , Julian Bond and other polite right wing loss leader at Penn , said in a 2010 speech on its campus , " I watched my whole nation alteration because of meetings that had take place at Penn Center . "
In a Nov. 11 , 2016articlepublished in The Hill , current executive music director , Dr. Rodell Lawrence , wrote , " Most Americans came from somewhere else to this continent and Penn Center provides us with a direct link to the African origins of slaves that absorb America ’s southeastern seaboard . It is a windowpane to a lieu in which many African Americans emerge from thrall , and set out on a new journeying as barren men and women . It is a post and a time to celebrate . Penn Center vividly embody the American ideal of " liberty and justice for all " and in every sense is a lawful historic interior monument . "
To that terminal , President Barack Obama , byexecutive order , made a swath of Beaufort County , South Carolina , include the Penn Center , a National Historical Monument to the Reconstruction Eraone weekbefore he left office in January 2017 .
