Martin Luther King, Jr.

“God has wrought many things out of oppression,” begins Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous essay occasioned by the first Berlin Jazz Festival in 1964. “He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy.”

Jan. 20, 2025

Jan. 17, 2025

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the S.C. NAACP's King Day at the Dome event in Columbia, S.C. on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024.

It was unclear nearly three years ago what would happen to a cache of civil rights-era items with a Charleston provenance.The collection included the original tape of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech delivered July 30, 1967, at Charleston County Hall, as well as a recording surreptitiously made of a Ku Klux Klan rally the night before King's appearance.It also contained audio of Ralph Abernathy's lengthy speech of April 1, 1969, delivered during the Charleston Hospital Workers Strike.The collection went to auction in 2019 and sold in New York City for $55,000 plus a 25-percent buyer's premium.Now it's back in Charleston, part of the holdings of the College of Charleston's Avery Research Center thanks to a donation from the Merrill C. Berman Collection.

Many around the state will celebrate Civil Rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with marches, parades, rallies, and volunteering events. In Columbia,…

On Mother's Day 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Kingstree, South Carolina and gave a remarkable public speech urging the audience of more than…