New exhibit honors civil rights activist
John Bolt Culbertson was unusual for his time.
The Greenville lawyer, who died in 1983, addressed black men by their titles, used their last names and shook their hands — in public. He represented them in court to fight for equal employment rights, and he joined and raised funds for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
And he did so in the midst of the civil rights movement, a time of intense unrest and tension thorough the state.
He was excluded from social functions and received threatening letters and phone calls. He found burning crosses on his front lawn. In 1956, Ebony magazine called him "the South's bravest white man."
"He must have known ... that he would have to change his ideas radically to have a successful (law) practice," said Thomas Terrill, an emeritus professor of history at USC and an expert on African American studies. "He didn't change."
Culbertson, who earned undergraduate and law degrees at USC, told his college friends he wanted to be a lawyer — a good lawyer. He'd rather be poor and keep hold of his beliefs, he told them, than be rich and let them go.
And while doing so won him a number of enemies, it's since earned him accolades. His friends and family gathered Tuesday evening for the opening of an exhibit on his life in the Hollings Special Collections Library, which included legislators, judges and lawyers from across the state.
He's since been recognized for work that disregarded society's norms and its powerful players.
After he opened his practice in 1938, Terrill recalled, Culbertson's letterhead listed him as an "attorney at law and labor counselor" for blue-collar workers in Upstate mills, at a time when the textile industry dominated Greenville.
But he did it because he'd developed sympathy for the underprivileged and a desire to help them as he studied at the university.
That work led him to fight for people on both sides of a divided South.
He fought for blacks as they sought equal rights, and he fought for mill workers, many of whom, Terrill said, "he knew were hostile to his work."
As he did it, he tried to help his children understand other people and cultures.
"He taught us and thought it was important to be exposed and to gain an appreciation for other people," said Manning Culbertson, his youngest son.
He took them often to Washington, D.C., to meet with Sen. Strom Thurmond and to African-American churches across South Carolina with civil rights leaders, the younger Culbertson said.
Doing so wasn't always easy.
His father protected his family from the violence and the threats, Manning Culbertson said, but the dangers were real.
"We always knew to be careful," he said. "We knew in the back of our minds."
Now, Manning Culbertson practices law, and he does so in Greenville, a place that's seen profound change in recent decades.
"My father would be 104 now," he said. "And it's hard to believe how much time has passed ... but what a difference and what a change it's been."