Fullerton Foundation funds summer study into civil rights, colonial architecture

By Gary Glancy
gary.glancy@shj.com
Spartanburg Herald-Journal

Published: Monday, July 6, 2009

From colonial American architecture to the civil rights movement, two Wofford College students are getting a unique look into South Carolina history.

Wofford's Community of Scholars summer research program is in full swing once again, having received a second round of funding from the Gaffney-based Fullerton Foundation for its fourth year. Rising seniors Sarah Hannah Newman and Jenny Afkinich are among the 19 students and 10 faculty members conducting independent research projects during the 10-week program, from Newman's study of cultural influences on South Carolina architecture prior to 1776, to Afkinich's look at the quest for racial equality in Rock Hill in the 1960s.

The scholars form a true community, living together at Wofford's The Village apartments and meeting twice a week to discuss their projects.

"It's nice that everyone has such an enthusiasm not only for their own projects but for everybody's," Newman said. "It's nice to know that I may not ever study about fatty acids or NGOs in Africa, but because I'm with these people, I get to learn about them to a greater degree than I would have even on my own."

Such cross-disciplinary interaction is what has impressed the Fullerton Foundation, said program director G.R. Davis, a biology professor.

It's not the only unique aspect of the program, he added.

"What's really unusual about these scholars is that the students come up with their own research ideas and then find a faculty member to support and supervise," Davis said. "So, instead of a hierarchal structure with students working with, or for, those faculty members, this is sort of a lateral structure. So, we call them 'student research fellows' and 'faculty research fellows' to indicate that they're all on an even level."

A great adventure

Newman's project has entailed a whirlwind tour of the state.

"It's been incredible," said Newman, an art history major from Camden. "South Carolina really does have such a unique and special history."

Newman is studying the settlement pattern of South Carolina and how the various national origins of the settlers are evidenced in the architecture, as well as how they adapted their homes based on the climate and available materials.

"South Carolina was settled in a manner typical of New England in that it was settled in a township scheme rather than a gradual dispersion across the land," Newman said. "Each of the townships was inhabited by nearly homogenous groups of either Dutch, Swiss, German, French Huguenot, English or Scotch-Irish settlers."

Newman, who like the other scholars receives a $3,000 stipend and reimbursement for other necessary expenses, has certainly been resourceful. Facilities that have not met her needs for research purposes have led her to other less-touristy, sometimes off-the-beaten track colonial homes.

She also has received personalized tours that have enabled her to study such details as the sawtooth molding at the Thorntree House in Kingstree.

"It's so intricate, the moldings in these houses," Newman said. "It's really surprising when you think that it would be incredible to see that fancy of molding in a house built today, but to think they were doing it in the middle of the frontier with such little tools and things that they had, it really makes you appreciate it that much more. And the fact that it's still standing is amazing."

This week, Newman received an individualized tour of the Bratton House in York County, as well as the smaller, more rudimentary frontier cabins on the grounds of the historic site. Richard Owens, a preservation specialist with York County who has worked with many college students from Clemson and Furman universities, showed Newman the 10- to 12-inch-wide logs of the 1770 original upstairs part of the main house, and the dirt floor, white-oak shingles and makeshift beds made of feather or pine needles in a frontier cabin.

"This is how crude your log cabin would be," Owens said, "if you just got off the boat in Charleston and were moving into the back country."

Newman, who traveled to several homes throughout the state with her mother -- another history buff -- was excited.

"It's been a great adventure," she said, "it really has."

A fresh perspective

Fast forward 200 years to the project by Afkinich, who has lived in Rock Hill since age 11 but was unaware of the significant role that city played in the civil rights movement until she took a sociology course about Martin Luther King Jr. at Wofford.

After spending her first five weeks doing library research, Afkinich now is conducting a series of interviews for an oral history of the times. Her first was Wednesday, when she met with James Wells -- one of the "Friendship Nine" who gained national attention in 1961 when they began the "jail, no bail" movement.

Wells, a retired attorney still living in Rock Hill, and the other Friendship Junior College students were arrested and charged with trespassing and breach of peace for sitting down to eat at the whites-only lunch counter at McCrory's in Rock Hill -- which Afkinich said recently reopened under a different name. They all chose to spend a month doing hard labor in the York County prison farm rather than to pay bail, and Wells' account of those days gave Afkinich a perspective she wouldn't have found in any textbook.

Afkinich said Wells told her his daily prison task of moving bricks was a "tough psychological punishment for him, because it made him feel like he was doing something useless when he was trying hard to make a stand."

But Wells also said he and his friends were treated well in the segregated prison by the other black prisoners, who often shared their biscuits with him during mealtime.

"So they were kind of treated like heroes there," Afkinich said.

Afkinich will look at other civil rights events in Rock Hill, such as the voluntary desegregation of St. Anne Catholic School -- South Carolina's first integrated school.