St. Helena Island, S.C. – Out of public view, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spent time incognito at a landmark location near Beaufort, South Carolina. Here at Penn Community Services on St. Helena Island, in the heart of the South Carolina Sea Islands, he strategized his thoughts and plans for his civil rights movement. King stood fast in his belief for social justice and non-violence.
“Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder the lie,” King said. “It doesn’t establish truth … Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate.”
He visited Penn Community Center five times between 1964 and 1967. Here he worked on and drafted his “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as plan and strategize the March on Washington. He said then “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” He worked in a secluded corner of the campus in a simple wooden cottage called the Gantt Cottage. After his death, the staff at Penn Center found portions of his handwritten “I Have a Dream” speech and turned them over to the King family.
Meetingplace of Revolutionaries
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was just one of many groups that used this quiet campus of older buildings to plot radical strategies. At the time, it was one of the few places blacks and whites could meet, discuss and argue issues and strategies. Many human rights activities visited the campus and hammered out their thoughts. CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the Southern Regional Council, the South Carolina Council on Human Relations, the World Peace Foundation, the NAACP and the American Friends Committee were among those to visit. John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young and Joan Baez all traveled there to be with King, taking time to join arms and sing “We Shall Overcome.”
History of the Penn School
In 1862, Laura Matilda Towne, an abolitionist missionary from Pittsburgh, established the Penn School. It was named after the Quaker, William Penn, champion of human liberty and founder of Pennsylvania. Ellen Murray, a Quaker teacher, joined Towne in her work. In addition, Charlotte Forten, born into a wealthy free Black family, joined as a teacher for a couple of years. Philadelphia Quaker abolitionists helped to finance the endeavor for many years.
The Penn School was the first school in America where newly emancipated people could learn reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as learn marketable skills, such as carpentry, masonry, basketweaving and blacksmithing. It provided critical educational skills to Gullah Geechie enslaved people freed after plantation owners fled the island at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.
It opened with about 30 students enrolled in 1862, and classes were held in Oak Plantation School House, a shared experience for the students. Later, classes were held in Brick Church. In 1864 Hasting Gantt, a freedman, donated fifty acres to Penn Center. In 1865, a new three-room building became the first school in the South for the instruction of former slaves. Students would usually spend a year in each shop and helped maintain the school buildings. Crops were raised for food by the students with meal preparation as a part of their curriculum. At its peak, enrollment reached 600 with day students as well as boarders. The school remained an active educational institution for public education until 1948 when the state took over public education. This was an important time for the Gullah people living on St. Helena Island, SC. They came from only being afforded a seventh-grade education, to now being able to earn a high school diploma.
Rooted in Purpose
The Penn Center’s purpose then became to safeguard the heritage of a Gullah Geechee community. The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved on the rice, indigo and Sea Island cotton plantations of the lower Atlantic coast. Gullah Geechee is a unique, creole language spoken in the coastal areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. It began as a simplified form of communication among people who spoke many languages—possibly as they were transported together across the Atlantic from Western Africa.
The mission of the Penn Center today is to promote and preserve the true history of the people of St. Helena Island and their culture through its commitment to education, community development and social justice. It preserves an important piece of America’s history. The campus is open to visitors for self-guided tours to discover the historic buildings and structures, which now includes an Airbnb and a community garden. One can schedule a docent/guided tour for $15.00 at the York W. Bailey Museum. There one will see fascinating historic photographs and paintings by a variety of talented artists. Paintings can be seen by Sam Doyle, a self-taught artist who attended the Penn School. His paintings are said to have been sold at auctions for $200,000.
The Penn Center today is thought of as a “hub of the community” with the descendants of original family members and founders participating in its activities. It is a highly significant African-American historical and cultural institution well worth visiting—tucked in the heart of the South Carolina Sea Islands surrounded by glimmering marshes and nestled beneath the silvery moss-draped limbs of massive live oaks. It played a significant role in the Civil Rights movement.