Walter Edgar's Journal

(Victoria Hansen/SC Public Radio) Four years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, a federal judge in Charleston hatched his secret plan to end segregation in America. Julius Waties Waring was perhaps the most unlikely civil rights hero in history. An eighth-generation Charlestonian, the son of a Confederate veteran and scion of a family of slave owners, Wari...

(SCETV) In her new book, Tell Me A Story: My Life With Pat Conroy (2019, William Morrow), bestselling author Cassandra King Conroy considers her life and the man she shared it with, paying tribute to her husband, Pat Conroy, the legendary figure of modern Southern literature. Cassandra King was leading a quiet life as a professor, divorced “Sunday wife” of a preacher, and debut novelist when she m...

(Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library) (SCETV/Original SC) The Battle of Kings Mountain was a military engagement between Patriot and Loyalist militias during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a decisive victory for the Patriots. The battle took place on October 7, 1780, in what is now rural Cherokee County, SC. The Patriot victory was o...

(1997 ABC, Inc Steve Fenn) Veteran journalist Cokie Roberts has died at age 75.  Roberts joined NPR in 1978, the start of a remarkable career that led her to ABC News in 1988, though she remained on NPR as a commentator until her death. Roberts died Tuesday due to complications from breast cancer, according to a family statement. Walter Edgar interviewed Roberts during a 2004 book tour promoting h...

(NOAA) Thirty years ago this month, the strongest and most costly hurricane to strike South Carolina in the 20 th century made landfall. Hurricane Hugo was a Category 4 storm when it came ashore just slightly north of Charleston, on Isle of Palms on September 22. The hurricane had 140 mph sustained winds, with gusts to more than 160 mph and brought a storm surge of over 20 feet to McClellanville,...

(Courtesy of Harper Collins) On Monday, September 2, 2019, South Carolina lost a beloved author. Dorothea Benton Frank, author of 20 best-selling novels set in the Lowcountry, died at the age of 67 after a brief illness . We’d like to share with you an excerpt of Dottie Frank’s last visit with us at Walter Edgar's Journal , broadcast August 14, 2015.   Listen to Dorothea Benton Frank's first appea...

(NOAA Photo Library [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr) In their new book, A Wholly Admirable Thing ( 2018, Evening Post Books), Virginia and Dana Beach chronicle ten stories that showcase the rise of the Coastal Conservation League to one of the country’s most tenacious and innovative conservation groups. The book highlights transformational initiatives undertaken by the Conservation League over three decade...

(Courtesy of NASA, July 16, 1969) Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke joins documentary producer/director Robert Stone  to talk with Walter Edgar about the Space Race of the 1960s, and about making the documentary Chasing the Moon. Chasing the Moon , the upcoming American Experience documentary (premieres July 8 on PBS), thoroughly reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much o...

(USC Beaufort) (Originally broadcast 03/10/17) - In this final installment of public Conversations on South Carolina: The State and the New Nation, 1783-1828 , Dr. Brent Morris, associate professor of history and chair of the humanities at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort, talks with Dr. Walter Edgar about the unification of the a divided South Carolina, and its evolution from a strongly...

(Originally broadcast 02/17/17) - For the second lecture in this four-part series of Conversations on South Carolina: The State and the New Nation, 1783-1828 . Dr. Larry Watson discusses slavery in South Carolina. Professor Watson is Associate Professor of History & Adjunct Professor of History South Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina. He is author of numerous artic...

(U.S. Senate) Former S.C. Governor and U.S. Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings died on Saturday, April 6, 2019 at the age of 97. A Democrat, he held elective office for over fifty years. In 2008, Hollings talked with Walter Edgar about his life in politics and government, and about how to "make government work" again. "Performance is better than promise" has long been the motto of Ernest F. "Fritz" H...

(Library of Congress) Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has said, "Reconstruction is one of the most important and consequential chapters in American history. It is also among the most overlooked, misunderstood and misrepresented." Gates' new four-part television series for PBS, Reconstruction: America after the Civil War begins it run on April 9 on SCETV. For an overview of this era in American history...

Believe it or not, there is no standardized design for the South Carolina state flag. There are, however, historical versions which vary from period to period. And there are countless variations on shirts, decals, caps, sweatshirts – each manufacturer creates its own version. Last year, the state legislature created a committee to come up with recommendations for a standard flag designs. On this w...

(Greg Turner [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] via Flickr) January and February gave us the State of the Union address and the State of the State address – important stuff. But, for a Southerner, there are specific, important areas of life in these United States that these addresses didn't cover – areas that we need to check on once in a while. So, in early 2019, what is the State of Southern Cuisine? Is it still...

With recent controversies over the use of trade tariffs by the United States, it might be a good time to take a look back at the history of their use. It’s a complicated, often fraught history. In fact, friction between the North and South over tariffs in the early 19 th century almost launched the Civil War, 30 years “early.” Dr. James C. Cobb, B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor Emeritus...

(Victoria Hansen/SC Public Radio) (Post and Courier) Four years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, a federal judge in Charleston hatched his secret plan to end segregation in America. Julius Waties Waring was perhaps the most unlikely civil rights hero in history. An eighth-generation Charlestonian, the son of a Confederate veteran and scion of a family of...

The film producer, actor, and Columbia Native Julian Adams joins Walter Edgar to talk about his new film, The Last Full Measure , and to talk about his journey into the world of filmmaking. Adam’s previous features include  Phantom  (2013) and  Amy Cook: The Spaces in Between  (2009). The Last Full Measure tells the true story of William Pitsenbarger (Jeremy Irvine), an Air Force medic who saved o...

(SCETV) (Tut Underwood/SC Public Radio) This week's program is an encore of an episode aired in 2012, featuring T. Moffatt Burriss. Burriss was a former Columbia area contractor, Republican state lawmaker and American World War II battlefield hero. He died January 4, 2019 at age 99.   (Broadcast 06/29/12) - Anderson native T. Moffatt Burris is a WWII veteran and concentration camp liberator who al...

(Lewis Hines/National Archives) (Originally broadcast 10/12/18) - New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash’s 2017 novel, The Last Ballad (2017, Willam Morrow) is set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events. It chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill; The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face...

(George Peter Alexander Healy) In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the need to conclude “the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.”  In his second Inaugural Address, he spoke in similar vein: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”  It’s likel...

(Lewis Hines/National Archives) New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash’s 2017 novel, The Last Ballad (2017, Willamm Morrow) is set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events. It chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill; The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice. It...

The late Noel Polk and Tudier Harris, with Walter Edgar, taping "Take on the South." (SCETV/SC Public Radio) This month, a PBS series, The Great American Read , celebrates the joy of reading and the books we love. Celebrities, authors, and book lovers reveal the novels that have affected their lives. And, the national vote gets under way, to decide America’s Best-Loved Novel. Back in 2009, SCETV's...

(U.S. National Archives) What are the guarantees of free speech found in the Constitution of the United States? Are there limits to free speech? And what are the responsibilities of citizens who exercise their right to free speech? Dr. Michael Lipscomb of Winthrop University, talks with Dr. Edgar about these and other questions. Dr. Lipscomb will be making a Constitution Day presentation, Free Spe...

(David Mark, via Pixabay [CC0 1.0]) Crossroads: Change in Rural America  is a traveling Smithsonian exhibit that offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths and to highlight the changes that affected their fortunes over the past century. Sponsored by SC Humanities in partnership with local communities,  Crossroads: Change in Rural America  will tour South Carolina in 2018 – 2019, visiti...

(Napoleon Sarony/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institite) In August of 2013, Walter Edgar's Journal featured a conversation with Maureen D. Lee, about her biography  Sissieretta Jones, "The Greatest Singer of Her Race," 1868-1933   (USC Press, 2012), which told the forgotten story of the pioneering African American diva whose remarkable career paved the way for many who followed her. Rece...