Midlands

An expert fundraiser and eloquent speaker among the wealthy northerners who visited Daytona Beach, Bethune developed her small school into a major institution.

While there was an emphasis on teacher education, the school’s primary focus was on industrial training. At a time when the state neglected the education of its black citizens, Bettis Academy offered educational opportunities when few professions were open to blacks.

The Big Apple dance was popularized nationally when it was taken to Manhattan by University of South Carolina students. A combination of the square dance and various jazz routines of the 1920s, the Big Apple caught the attention of white college students who, encouraged by nightclub owner Fat Sam, paid 10¢ to watch dancers from the nightclub balcony.

Big Thursday’s popularity exploded after World War II. By the late 1950s, however, Clemson was pushing for an end-of-season game played on an alternating home schedule, in part so that Clemson could share the tourist money that surrounded the game. Both schools agreed that 1959 would be the last Big Thursday game, which Clemson won, 27–0. Big Thursday ended with Clemson holding a 33–21–3 advantage.

In 1928 Billings succeeded Henry Cabot Lodge II as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Time, a weekly news-magazine. Three years later he assumed the managing editorship of Life, a new weekly pictorial magazine. The eight years in that position were considered the most noteworthy of his journalistic career.

Aside from its role as the seat of Lee County government, Bishopville has also served as a business and cultural center throughout its existence.

In some places the Black River is swamplike, while in others it is swift moving with a sandy bottom. With the exception of the town of Kingstree and the final stretch in Georgetown County, the banks of the Black River remain forested and largely undisturbed by development. Since the collapse of the rice culture, South Carolinians have mostly used the Black River basin as a resource for timbering, hunting, and fishing.

Prior to the Civil War, Blackville prospered as a cotton reception point, which stimulated the development of a bustling mercantile community. The final decades of the twentieth century found Blackville struggling to maintain its position of economic importance within Barnwell County. In 1979 more than one-fifth of Blackville families lived below the poverty line, and the removal of the town’s railroad line in the late 1980s further added to difficulties.

In addition to her novels, Blackwell writes regularly for The Chronicle of Higher Education, describing professional and academic trends in the field of creative writing and analyzing their effects on writers and their work.

Perhaps the greatest crisis of Blackwood’s administration occurred during the General Textile Strike of September 1934, when half of the state’s textile workforce went on strike to protest wage cuts and poor working conditions. Blackwood called out the National Guard and empowered “constables without compensation” to patrol mill villages. On September 6 several “constables” fired on striking workers at Honea Path, killing seven and wounding fourteen.

In 1935 he was elected Speaker Pro Tem of the S.C. House of Representatives. Two years later he was chosen Speaker of the House. He held this position from 1937 to 1973 with the exception of the period from 1947 to 1951, when he did not oppose Governor Strom Thurmond’s candidate for Speaker, C. Bruce Littlejohn. In 1951 Blatt was reelected Speaker of the House by a vote of 113 to 9. He held the position until stepping down in 1973.

As governor, Blease emphasized individual freedom for whites and racism. He opposed government regulation, even if its purpose was to benefit the same mill workers to whom he appealed. He denounced an act to limit working hours for mill employees, believing it interfered with parents’ control over their children. He vetoed legislation to inspect factories for safety and health considerations, stating that a man ought to be able to work under any conditions he chose. He opposed compulsory education as an attempt to replace parents with “the paid agents of the State in the control of children,” and he vetoed four compulsory attendance bills while governor.

The state is famed for Winnsboro blue granite, which was quarried for many years in Fairfield County. The stone is of light blue color and contains particles of mica, feldspar, and quartz. It is much prized in construction and decoration.

The grandson of former chief Samuel Taylor Blue, Gilbert Blue was elected chief of the Catawba Tribe of South Carolina in 1973. Under Chief Blue’s leadership, the Catawba successfully pursued their lawsuit against the state of South Carolina for land claims under the Nations Ford Treaty of 1840 and their quest for the reinstatement of status as a federally recognized Indian tribe.

Chief Samuel Blue was the driving force behind the political revival of the Catawba tribe. It was during his second administration that the Catawba finally became a federally recognized tribe and recovered parts of their original reservation.

In early 1961 a vacancy occurred in the county’s S.C. House of Representatives delegation, requiring a special off-year election to fill the unexpired term. Although a Republican had not held a seat in the General Assembly since 1902, local party leaders moved quickly to recruit Boineau as their candidate. Boineau won handily with fifty-five percent of the vote. He ran strongest in white precincts in Columbia, while Joe Berry, his principal opponent, received disproportionate support from black precincts and in the county’s less urbanized areas.

Bolden is a veteran of four space flights. In January 1986 he served as part of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, which deployed the SATCOM KU satellite, and performed experiments in astrophysics and materials processing. Four years later, in April 1990, Bolden piloted the space shuttle Discovery, whose crew deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.

Bolden is a veteran of four space flights...On completion of his fourth shuttle mission, he had logged more than 680 hours in space.

Bonham rode with James Bowie into San Antonio de Béxar and the Alamo in early January 1836. The town of Bonham, Texas, was named in his honor.

As governor, Bonham sought to strengthen state laws on conscription, slave impressments, and desertion, taking positions more in support of the Confederate government.