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“H” is for Hinton, James Miles (1891-1970

“H” is for Hinton, James Miles (1891-1970). Clergyman, businessman, civil rights leader. Born in North Carolina and reared in New York, Hinton began his business career with the Pilgrim Health and Life Insurance Company based in Augusta, Georgia. In 1939 he established a home in Columbia and helped shape the future course of the struggle for racial equality in the Palmetto State. Hinton became president of the Columbia branch of the NAACP and in 1941, president of the statewide conference of the organization. Under his leadership the NAACP had exponential growth in South Carolina and won major legal victories with equal pay for teachers and the abolition of the all-White primary. James Miles Hinton, more than another other single leader was responsible for turning the tide against the Jim Crow doctrine of “separate but equal.”

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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.