This letter is in response to Ben Crawford's article on Feb. 3 about the renaming of Tillman Hall at Clemson and the Strom Thurmond Fitness Center here at USC.
I'd like to start off by saying there is no way to argue the point that Strom Thurmond was a strong opponent of the civil right acts. In fact, he is best known for his filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 in which he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
However it was not his anti-civil rights actions that made him the logical choice to have something named after him. His years of service to his country and state were what made him the logical choice.
He served in the United States Army from 1924 through 1963 reaching the rank of Major General. For his military service he was awarded two Legion of Merits with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Bronze star with Valor, the Purple Heart, a WW2 Victory Medal and a European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.
He was also awarded the Order of the Crown by the Belgium Government, the Croix de Guerre by the French Government and was in public life for 68 years.
He served as a state senator from 1933 until 1938, governor from 1947 to 1951 and senator from 1954 to 1956 and 1956 to 2003. In the 1954 election he won as a write in candidate, becoming the first senator to ever reach office in that manner. One of these actions alone, with the exception of his work as a state senator, would make him worthy of having a building named after him.
In fact, if the only problem with Sen. Strom Thurmond is his stance on civil rights, why is there no discussion on renaming Rutledge College? Rutledge, along with every congressman from the South, threatened to pull out of the Constitutional Convention if slavery was outlawed.
If the only issue is their stance on slavery or civil rights, then practically every building's name here at USC and monument should be removed. Why remember Rutledge’s service to America at a very unstable time when he owned slaves.
Why honor Pinckney, Marion,Sumter, Pickens, Harper/Elliott, or Maxcy when they all likely owned slaves? Why honor Wade Hampton or John C. Calhoun?
All these men helped make America and South Carolina into what it is today. Should they not be honored because of one blemish on their history? Even though it is a big problem and a great evil, should a man who gave his life in service to his state be punished for one thing?
We don't honor these stains that stand on these men's record. We honor the good things about them. John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney served their state in the first constitutional convention.
Their names remain in iron ink on the Constitution. Pickens, Marion and Sumter fought in the revolution to earn the freedom that we all enjoy today.
Though they may not have supported the freedom of slaves, their sacrifices paved the way for the destruction of it. No matter how much we may want to, we cannot take an eraser to our history.
The Jim Crow era may not be a pleasant time in our history, but to try and erase every remaining link to that history is the height of ignorance. We cannot whitewash our history. All that’s left to do is the try and succeed where our parents and ancestors failed.