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Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.Gordon C. Rhea tells Swails' story in his new biography, Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2021, LSU Press. Rhea talks with Walter Edgar about the saga of this indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality.

Nature’s evolutionarily perfect scavengers, our vultures, are Johnny on the spot to deal with roadkill.

In the United States we have vultures – the black and turkey vultures in the southeast and the California condor out in the Golden State, each in a different genus but the same family.

If you get a locally grown tree, the carbon footprint is as small as a reindeer’s print in the snow. On the other hand, artificial trees are made of plastic, and the carbon footprint travels from the oil fields to the manufacturer, the retailer and to your home.

If you go to Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center and search for "Selecting a Christmas Tree, Fact sheet 1750," you will find a list of all types of trees and tell you the complexity or lack of fragrance, how strong the branches are, shades of green with certain hues, and how well the needles hold on.

“G” is for Gibson, Althea (1927-2003). Tennis champion. Born in Silver (Clarendon County), Gibson was the daughter of sharecroppers.

For the past seven years, our next guest’s private equity investment firm has participated in funding more than $3 billion in a variety of real estate transactions in North and South Carolina, involving everything from infrastructure to home building to restaurants and even including crypto mining. How do they feel about these markets now that rising inflation and interest rates seem to be cooling things down a bit? Mike Switzer interviews Joe Baldassarra, president of Broadstreet, Inc. in Greenville, SC.

After being introduced to fly fishing in Wyoming shortly after college, our next guest became enamored with the sport and eventually turned his enthusiasm into a business, a podcast, and a business alliance that seek to help those in that industry become more environmentally friendly. Mike Switzer interviews Rick Crawford, founder of Emerger Strategies in Charleston, SC.

The southern house spider is a species of large spider in the family Filistatidae. Currently given the scientific name Kukulcania hibernalis, it was formerly known as Filistata hibernalis. Found in the Americas, it exhibits strong sexual dimorphism. It is occurs in the southern states of the USA, throughout Central America and some of the Caribbean, to southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. The males may be mistaken for brown recluses because the two have similar coloration and body structure.

This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Rebecca Wineland about getting the flu vaccine and Covid-19 vaccine during pregnancy. Dr. Wineland is an Assistant Professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and an obstetrician who specializes in treating high-risk pregnancies at MUSC.