Black History Month

Esau Jenkins was born in 1910 on Johns Island and left school in the fourth grade to work the fields with his family. But he would go on to ensure the children and adults on the island always had a way to get an education. In 1945, after furthering his schooling through night classes and correspondence courses, Jenkins purchased a bus in order to bring children from John's Island into the city’s public schools. He later offered rides to adults to their jobs, but it wasn’t just transportation. On the rides, Jenkins taught the adults to recite passages from the state constitution, a requirement to vote at the time.

Among his many civil rights efforts over the decades, Jenkins created the Progressive Club, which raised money to open a grocery store and gas station on the island. He helped to found a Citizenship School that taught people to read so that they could pass voting tests and he encouraged the City of Charleston to hire their first Black bus drivers. In the 1960s, he extended his efforts to the Hispanic migrant labor force that came to the area. Jenkins died in 1972 and was inducted in the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2003.

Throughout February, we’re highlighting Black members of the Lowcountry community, discussing the lives they led, the work they did and the impact they made.