“M” is for McKaine, Osceola Enoch (1892-1955). Civil rights activist. A native of Sumter, McKaine enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I. Following the war, he settled in New York City and served as national field secretary for the League for Democracy, a Black veterans’ organization that sought to secure civil rights legislation. In the early 1920s he emigrated to Ghent, Belgium where he and a partner established a popular supper club. He returned to Sumter in 1939 where he became a popular lecturer and wrote articles for leading Black journals. He became associate editor for the Lighthouse and Informer. In 1944, McKaine was the Progressive Democratic Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate—the first time since Reconstruction that a Black Carolinians had run for statewide office. In 1946, Osceola Enoch McKaine returned to Belgium where he died in 1955.
“M” is for McKaine, Osceola Enoch (1892-1955)
