Further study

Exhibition hours

Justice for All: South Carolina and the American Civil Rights Movement opens Thursday, April 6, and remains on view until Friday, June 30, 2023.

The exhibition is open to USC Upstate students, staff, and faculty during all library hours.

The exhibition is open to the public on the following schedule:

Through May 1, 2023

Monday-Thursday, 7:30 am-10 pm
Friday, 7:30 am-5 pm
Saturday, 10 am-5 pm*
Sunday, 2 pm-10 pm*

Beginning May 2, 2023*

Monday-Friday, 8:30 am-5 pm

* The library will be closed on Saturday, April 8, and Sunday, April 9, in observance of Easter.

** Additional summer hours will be announced.

Campus maps & parking

Use our campus maps to locate the USC Upstate Library.

Before you arrive, get information about parking on campus.

For more information

For general information about the exhibition, viewing hours, location, and events, contact the USC Upstate Library at (864) 503-5620.

For media inquiries, contact Trevor Anderson in USC Upstate Marketing and Communications at (864) 503-7419.

For information about exhibition content, contact the USC Center for Civil Rights History and Research, by phone at (803) 777-2220 or via email at sccivilrights@sc.edu.

Online guestbook

Use the QR code or follow this link to share your thoughts about the Justice for All exhibitions and activities.

Share your story

By gathering images, artifacts, and testimony, the Justice for All project will ensure that a more accurate and expansive account of South Carolina’s civil rights history becomes familiar to all. The stories of those who lived it, are touched by it, and continue to tell it are integral to this project, and we want to hear from you.

Take a moment to type your story and submit it here and become a part of the Justice for All project.

Research resources

Note: Remote access to e-resources is limited to current USC Upstate students, staff, and faculty

African American Historical Serials Collection
Periodicals, reports, and annuals from various African American organizations including churches, educational, and service institutions.
African-American History
Covers full spectrum of African-American history and culture.
Black Drama: Second Edition
Plays and related materials.
Black Studies Center
Scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books, and more. Includes The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, and Black Literature Index.
Black Thought and Culture
Works from leaders within the black community covering black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
Black Women Writers
Essays, fiction, and poetry from Africa and the Americas.

African-American Studies
by Erika Montgomery Last Updated Apr 28, 2025 72 views this year

Note: Remote access to e-books is limited to current USC Upstate students, staff, and faculty

Stories of Struggle by Claudia Smith Brinson
ISBN: 1643361074

Publication Date: 2020-11-30

In this pioneering study of the long and arduous struggle for civil rights in South Carolina, longtime journalist Claudia Smith Brinson details the lynchings, beatings, bombings, cross burnings, death threats, arson, and venomous hatred that black South Carolinians endured--as well as the astonishing courage, devotion, dignity, and compassion of those who risked their lives for equality.
All for Civil Rights by W. Lewis Burke
ISBN: 0820350982

Publication Date: 2017-07-30

The history of the black lawyer in South Carolina, writes W. Lewis Burke, is one of the most significant untold stories of the long and troubled struggle for equal rights in the state. Beginning in Reconstruction and continuing to the modern civil rights era, 168 black lawyers were admitted to the South Carolina bar. All for Civil Rights is the first book-length study devoted to those lawyers' struggles and achievements in the state that had the largest black population in the country, by percentage, until 1930-and that was a majority black state through 1920.
South Carolina at the Brink by Philip G. Grose
ISBN: 1570036241

Publication Date: 2006-05-01

As the Democratic governor of South Carolina during the height of the civil rights movement, Robert E. McNair faced the task of leading the state through the dismantling of its pervasive Jim Crow culture. Despite the obstacles, McNair was able to navigate a moderate course away from a past dominated by an old-guard oligarchy toward a more pragmatic, inclusive, and prosperous era.
South of Main by Beatrice Hill (Compiled by); Raymond Floyd; Hub City Writers Project Staff (Contribution by)
ISBN: 1891885464

Publication Date: 2005-11-01
Champions of Civil and Human Rights in South Carolina, Volume 1 by Marvin Ira Lare (Editor)
ISBN: 1611177251

Publication Date: 2016-12-15

An anthology of oral history interviews with significant South Carolina civil rights activists, Champions of Civil and Human Rights in South Carolina is a five-volume anthology spanning the decades from 1930 to 1980 with oral history interviews of key activists and leaders of the civil rights movement in South Carolina.
Democracy Rising by Peter F. Lau
ISBN: 0813159121

Publication Date: 2014-10-17

Considered by many historians to be the birthplace of the Confederacy, South Carolina experienced one of the longest and most turbulent Reconstruction periods of all the southern states. After the Civil War, white supremacist leadership in the state fiercely resisted the efforts of freed slaves to secure full citizenship rights and to remake society based upon an expansive vision of freedom forged in slavery and the crucible of war. Despite numerous obstacles, African Americans achieved remarkable social and political advances in the ten years following the war, including the establishment of the state's first publicly-funded school system and health care for the poor. Through their efforts, the state's political process and social fabric became more democratic.
The Spirit of an Activist by Sadye L. (Editor); Bernon E. Jordan; James E. Clyburn
ISBN: 1611173272

Publication Date: 2014-04-30

The Spirit of an Activist chronicles the life and distinguished career of Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1911-1985), a Protestant pastor, civil rights leader, and South Carolina statesman. Known as a tenacious advocate for racial equality, Newman was also renowned for his diplomatic skills when working with opponents and his advocacy of nonviolent protest over confrontation. His leadership and dedication to peaceful change played an important role in the dismantling of segregation in South Carolina.
The Slow Undoing by Stephen H. Lowe
ISBN: 1643361767

Publication Date: 2022-01-30

As the first comprehensive study of one state's federal district courts during the long civil rights movement, The Slow Undoing argues for a reconsideration of the role of the federal courts in the civil rights movement. It places the courts as a central battleground at the intersections of struggles over race, law, and civil rights. During the long civil rights movement, Black and White South Carolinians used the courts as a venue to contest the meanings of the constitution, justice, equality, and citizenship. African American plaintiffs and lawyers from South Carolina, with the support of Thurgood Marshall and other lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, brought and argued civil rights lawsuits in South Carolina's federal courts attempting to secure the vote, raise teacher salaries, and to equalize and then desegregate schools, parks, and public life. In response, white citizens, state politicians, and local officials, hired their own lawyers who countered these arguments by crafting new legal theories in an attempt to defend state practices and thwart African American aspirations of equality and to preserve white supremacy.
Toward the Meeting of the Waters by Winfred B. Moore (Editor); Orville Vernon Burton (Editor)
ISBN: 1570037558

Publication Date: 2008-10-30

South Carolina has long been the nexus of struggles in Southern race relations yet no definitive history has chronicled the dynamic social changes wrought in the Palmetto State during the civil rights era or interpreted the inspirational efforts of the state's reform-minded activists. ""Toward the Meeting of the Waters"" represents a watershed moment in civil rights history - bringing together voices of leading historians alongside recollections from central participants to provide the first comprehensive history of the civil rights movement as experienced by black and white South Carolinians.
Hope's Kids by Alan Venable
ISBN: 1940722020

Publication Date: 2017-11-01

Spring 1965. In the wake of Selma, a bill is finally wending through Congress to end the rigged literacy tests and other devices in place since Reconstruction to keep southern blacks out of voting and government. At the same time, Dr. King's non-violent "wild man" Hosea Williams is laying the groundwork for hundreds of students to canvass the south in a summer voting rights project called SCOPE. Two dozen sign up at Brandeis, a vibrant young Boston area college, to work in South Carolina. Late June. The Voting Rights Bill still hung up in Congress, the Brandeis SCOPErs arrive in urban Richland County, soon spreading out to hinterlands in adjoining Kershaw and Calhoun Counties. In each place they confront a powerful mix of intimidation, persisting sanctioned segregation and astonishing poverty. Sheltered in black homes, they place themselves in the service of local leaders in a century's struggle for equal rights. To the kids from Boston, it will be scary, surprising, inspiring, complex; above all rewarding.

Additional reading

Mike Ellis, "With library books in tow, 8 Black teens changed Greenville, S.C., 60 years ago," Greenville News, July 19, 2020; reprinted in USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/19/greenville-south-carolina-protesters-talk-60-years-after-library-desegregation/5450756002/

Dwain Pruitt, Things hidden: An introduction to the history of Blacks in Spartanburg. Spartanburg, S.C.: The City of Spartanburg's Community Relations Office, 1995. (In print at USC Upstate Library F 277 .S7 P78 1995)