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Two controversial bills important to the Republican majority made it through the state legislature this week with a week to spare in this year’s session. Bills that could see the resumption of executions, and handguns allowed to be carried in public won final approval, and will soon be on the way to the Governor to be signed into law.

“U” is for United Methodist Church. The United Methodist Church (UMC) was formed in 1968 by the union of the former Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB) and the Methodist Church. There were no EUB churches in the state, but after the unification of the Methodist Church in 1939, black Methodists from the South Carolina Conference of the former Methodist Episcopal Church were members of the all-black Central Jurisdiction and white Methodists from the former South Carolina Conference of the former Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were members of the all-white Southeastern Jurisdiction. In 1964 the General Conference of the Methodist Church set the goal of a racially inclusive United Methodist Church. However, it was not until 1972 that the first meeting of a merged conference of the United Methodist Church in South Carolina was convened.

“W” is for Walterboro (Colleton County; population 5364). Just after the Revolutionary War, rice planters from the Edisto, Combahee, and Ashepoo Ricers, tired of an annual summer jaunt of fifty miles to Charleston, created an alternate refuge from the malarial swamps closer to home. By the 1790s, among local forests and freshwater springs, they built a village that they called Walterboro. Profits from rice and indigo produced by enslaved black labor brought prosperity. In 1817 the town became the seat of Colleton District. An elegant brick courthouse designed by Robert Mills was complete in 1822. Four years later the town was incorporated. In 1828, Robert Barnwell Rhett launched the nullification movement at the Walterboro Courthouse. Throughout the antebellum period in the years preceding the Civil War, Walterboro was a hotbed of states’ rights sentiment.

“A” is for African Americans. The first African Americans to live in what is now South Carolina were enslaved persons in the sixteenth century Spanish settlements of San Miguel de Gualdape and Santa Elena. English settlers created an agricultural economy based upon enslaved labor. Some twenty-five West African ethnicities have been identified among the enslaved population. By 1708 African Americans comprised a majority of the colony’s population. A century later when the eternal slave trade was closed, it was estimated that forty percent of the enslaved persons brought to the United States had come through the port of Charleston. Regardless of individuals’ status, the presence of a large African American population throughout South Carolina’s more than 350 years of settled history has had a significant impact of the state’s cultural, economic, and political development.

“C” is for Callen, Maude Daniel (1898-1990). Nurse. A native of Florida, Callen graduated from Florida A&M College and completed nurse midwife training at Tuskegee Institute. In 1923, as a missionary with the Episcopal Church, she was a registered nurse in Berkeley County. She was often the sole health-care provider, teacher, and nutritionist for the remote and dispersed population of a four-hundred-square mile area. Callen taught children to read and write and held vaccination clinics at local schools for smallpox and diphtheria. She is best remembered for her work as a nurse midwife, delivering more than one thousand babies and providing prenatal and postnatal care to mothers. She continually sought opportunities for educating women in basic medical practices and midwifery. In 1990 Maude Daniel Callen was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

Mike Switzer interviews John Warner, a serial entrepreneur whose insights are published online at Medium under the title “Control Your Destiny”. He is based in Greenville, S.C.

This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Allison Eckard about the COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents age 12 and up. Dr. Eckard is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, and she is the Division Chief for Pediatric Infectious Diseases at MUSC.

Mike Switzer interviews Tracie Broom, co-founding partner and chief strategy officer for Flock and Rally Integrated Communications and Marketing in Columbia SC.

Music can give meaning to time.

Mike Switzer interviews Roy Janse, a certified financial planner and managing partner at Goldfinch Wealth Management in Greenville, SC.