South Carolina’s most distinctive Revolutionary commemoration moment is Carolina Day on June 28, marking the Patriot victory at Sullivan’s Island. After fading to a simple ringing of the bells at St. Michael’s Church, it was resurrected in the 1990s and now features parades, lectures, and speeches. The 250th anniversary is bringing reenactments and major civic events across the state. The Fourth of July has had a more complicated path. South Carolinians abandoned it during the Civil War as “the enemy’s holiday,” although their 1860 secession document had borrowed from the Declaration. It was Black Charlestonians who reclaimed the Fourth after emancipation, with grand parades, picnics at White Point Garden, public readings of the Declaration, and speeches by Black Republican leaders, a tradition driven underground after 1877 but kept alive in churches and homes well into the twentieth century.
Interviewees
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Elizabeth Chew
- CEO, South Carolina Historical Society
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Annette Guild
- Metadata Specialist, South Carolina Historical Society
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Melina Testin
- Education Coordinator, South Carolina Historical Society
