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"S" is for Stewart, Thomas McCants (1853-1923)

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

"S" is for Stewart, Thomas McCants (1853-1923). Lawyer, civil rights leader. Born a free person of color in Charleston, McCants achieved national distinction as an African-American leader in the nineteenth century. After attending Avery Normal Institute, he enrolled first at Howard University in Washington—then the University of South Carolina where he earned a B.A. and a law degree. In 1878 he attended Princeton Theological Seminary and, in 1880 became pastor of the Bethel AME Church in New York. There, Stewart emerged as a national civil rights leader and respected attorney. In 1883, he migrated to Liberia to serve as a professor at Liberia College and to encourage African Americans to immigrate. Thomas McCants Stewart returned home, but in1911was back in Liberia where he was appointed an associate justice of the Liberian Supreme Court.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.