Coming Soon

Stories of a People

Throughout history, African Americans passed along folk tales to ease burdens and make sense of experiences. Tracing back to West Africa, this storytelling tradition provided laughter, instruction and resilience. Animal stories often were proverbs for adults and teaching points for children. Two pioneering Black schoolteachers told of their careers in education. An eyewitness described the Charleston Race Riot in 1919. Others gave testimonies of Denmark Vesey’s attempted slave rebellion. Author Damon L. Fordham presents this collection of Black South Carolina stories and narratives based on interviews and research, including his travels in Africa.

The Stories Behind Iconic Venues

Theaters in the Tri-Cities featured everything from early minstrel shows of the nineteenth century to the modern multiplex movie houses of the twenty-first century. It’s a complex subject that is closely connected to the region’s overall history. The Barter Theatre is the official theater of Virginia. Memorial Hall Theater, which opened in 1904, may be the oldest operating venue in the region. The Johnson City Transit Center now sits at the previous site of four famous theaters. Robert Sorrell details the history of these iconic theaters and the influence they had on their communities.

Nannie Berger Hairston was a crusader for justice in twentieth-century Virginia.

Nannie Berger Hairston was born in West Virginia in 1921, half a century after the end of the Civil War. She attended segregated schools, graduated, married and started a family. When Nannie’s husband, John, lost his job in the coal mine, the Hairstons moved to Southwest Virginia. It was the height of Jim Crow, and yet, against great odds, she and John became leaders in the community, advocating for civil rights and social justice. Nannie Hairston’s advice was sought by the powerless as well as the powerful. At the time of her death in 2017, she had taken her place as an icon for truth, justice and love.

Local author Sheree Scarborough uses Nannie Hairston’s own words to tell her story.

Author Alan Brown guides the intrepid on a dark tour of the Pelican State’s most infamous residents. Louisiana beckons those the world over with its culture and Spanish moss–draped beauty. But that magnetic pull has also summoned a cast of reprobates vile enough to fill a book. In this version of Louisiana, pirate Jean Lafitte and gentlemanly train robber Eugene Bunch go ahead and help themselves to whatever they like, murderous dentist Etienne De Champs is the stuff of dentophobic nightmares, a psychotic killer known as “The Axeman” stalks the streets of New Orleans and a hail of bullets greets Bonnie and Clyde. Indeed, the sadistic Delphine LaLaurie and Voodoo Queen Clementine Barnabet are quite comfortable in this decidedly non-moss-draped history.

It was a common story in the 1980s: downtowns were dying.

Stuart was right there with the ill-fated. Businesses had largely abandoned Stuart’s historic buildings, leaving the streets deserted. The St. Lucie River, which should have been an asset, was more of a liability, befouled with pollution, some of it from the city’s sewer system. The southernmost leg of Interstate 95 hadn't been completed yet, meaning US 1, the town’s main thoroughfare, was clogged with traffic that had no intention of stopping in this dirty backwater. Indeed, downtown was in such bad shape that Martin County government was thinking of relocating its courthouse. But the city had one thing going for it: a core group of citizens who fought back to restore downtown into an award-winning showpiece. Author Blake Fontenay shares the story of Stuart’s revitalization.