Modjeska Monteith Simkins
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Modjeska Monteith Simkins (December 5, 1899 – April 5, 1992) was an important leader of
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
public health reform, social reform and the
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
in
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
.


Early life

Modjeska Monteith was born on December 5, 1899, in
Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the capital of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 census, it is the second-largest city in South Carolina. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city ...
. Her father, Henry Clarence Montieth, worked as a brick mason, and her mother was Rachel Evelyn Hall. Modjeska lived on a farm near Columbia and attended elementary school, high school and
Benedict College Benedict College is a private historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina. Founded in 1870 by northern Baptists, it was originally a teachers' college. It has since expanded to offer majors in many disciplines across the liberal arts ...
, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1921. The same year, she began teaching at Booker T. Washington High School. Because public schools in Columbia did not allow married women to teach, she was asked to resign when she married Andrew Whitfield Simkins in December 1929. In 1931, Simkins entered the field of public health as the Director of Negro Work for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association, and became the state's only full-time, statewide African-American public health worker. For decades prior to the 1930s, southern racism and poverty had created an alarming increase in deaths among African Americans due to
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
,
pellagra Pellagra is a disease caused by a lack of the vitamin niacin (vitamin B3). Symptoms include inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth. Areas of the skin exposed to either sunlight or friction are typically affected first. Over t ...
and other illnesses. By creating alliances with influential white and African-American groups and raising funds, Simkins made a substantial impact on the health of African Americans in South Carolina.


Civil rights advocate

In 1942, Simkins lost her position with the Tuberculosis Association, partly due to her increasing involvement with the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). In 1939, when the South Carolina NAACP was formed, Simkins was already a member of the executive board of the local Columbia NAACP branch and the chair of its program committee. Simkins became one of the founders of the state conference, elected to the first executive board, and the first chair of the state programs committee. In 1941, she was elected Secretary of the state conference, the only woman to serve as an officer. During her tenure as Secretary (1941–57), her work helped the state move towards racial equality. From 1943 to 1945, she was instrumental in gaining teacher approval and support for teacher equalization lawsuits in
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, South Carolina, and Columbia, South Carolina. Perhaps her most significant work took place in 1950 with the South Carolina federal court case of ''
Briggs v. Elliott ''Briggs v. Elliott'', 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into ''Brown v. ...
''. Working with the Reverend
Joseph DeLaine Joseph Armstrong DeLaine (July 2, 1898 – August 3, 1974) was a Methodist minister and civil rights leader from Clarendon County, South Carolina. He received a B.A. from Allen University in 1931, working as a laborer and running a dry cleaning bu ...
, president of the
Clarendon County, South Carolina Clarendon County is a county located below the fall line in the Coastal Plain region of U.S. state of South Carolina. As of 2020 census, its population was 31,144. Its county seat is Manning. This area was developed for lumber and mills, incl ...
NAACP, she helped write the declaration for the school lawsuit that asked for the equalization of Clarendon County black and white schools. The Clarendon County case was eventually reworked to become one of several individual cases set up to directly challenge the "separate but equal" doctrine in the Supreme Court of the United States case of ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' in
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in 1954. Because her activism was at times controversial, her life and home became targets of violence. An unknown person shot at her house during the time she was active with the NAACP. In the late 1950s, many began to accuse Simkins of being a communist. Some of her friends were members of the
American Communist Party The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
, and she was accused of subversive activities by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
and the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
. Furthermore, accusations against civil rights activists for being communists intensified after the ''Brown'' decision was passed down. In 1957, Simkins was not nominated as a candidate for secretary by the Nominations Committee of the South Carolina NAACP. It was the first time in sixteen years that she did not get nominated. Some NAACP officials have suggested that her associations with communists and supposedly subversive groups were the cause of this. She remained active for many years in the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), a southwide interracial civil rights organization, working with James Dombrowski and
Carl Carl may refer to: *Carl, Georgia, city in USA *Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community * Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name *Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of te ...
and
Anne Braden Anne McCarty Braden (July 28, 1924 – March 6, 2006) was an American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator dedicated to the cause of racial equality. She and her husband bought a suburban house for an African American couple during J ...
. Simkins was able to serve in leadership positions that were traditionally unavailable to women in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1981, she was honored by a coalition of civil rights groups, who established an endowment in her name to provide income for activists working for the causes of the underprivileged. Hundreds of people attended a memorial service following her death on April 5, 1992, and Judge Matthew J. Perry stated:
She probably will be remembered as a woman who challenged everyone. She challenged the white political leadership of the state to do what was fair and equitable among all people and she challenged black citizens to stand up and demand their rightful place in the state and the nation.


Death and legacy

Simkins died in Columbia, South Carolina on April 5, 1992, and was interred at the Palmetto Cemetery in Columbia. Her portrait hangs in the
South Carolina State House The South Carolina State House is the building housing the government of the U.S. state of South Carolina, which includes the South Carolina General Assembly and the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. Located in t ...
.


References


Bibliography

*Woods, Barbara A. "Modjeska Simkins and the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, 1939-1957." ''Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers 1941-1965.'' Ed. Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. 85-97. *Bruce, Catherine Fleming. 'The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Social Movements. Tnovsa LLC, 2016. Second Edition, 2019.


External links


"South Carolina's Modjeska Simkins, a driven woman"
in The African American Registry *Oral History Interviews with Modjeska Simkin

fro
Oral Histories of the American SouthModjeska Monteith Simkins Papers
(fully digitized) at South Carolina Political Collections at the University of South Carolina {{DEFAULTSORT:Simkins, Modjeska Monteith 1899 births 1992 deaths African-American activists Activists for African-American civil rights Benedict College alumni Civil rights movement People from Columbia, South Carolina Southern Conference Educational Fund 20th-century African-American women Women civil rights activists