Banner and Button Making on June 10

We're going to be holding a pasta dinner and banner and button making workshop to prepare for No King's Day the following weekend. We'll be set up to design, trace, and paint banners of 4x15 feet and 5x20 feet. However, with preparation, other sizes are possible. We'll also have a button maker and button-making supplies for 2.25-diameter buttons.  We may do some digital and music production as well. It's time to go big or go home in preparation for "Liberate Our Lowcountry- Five Weeks For Freedom." 

The production session will be held at 32 Sowell St. Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464 (The Home of the Brave) and the home of Wendy Temple and William Hamilton. Tuesday, June 10, 6 pm until we're done. You can sign up on Google Calendar online at https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=Y2twbTZjMzM2cGhqZWI5aWM0cTNnYjlrYzRvamFiOW9jY3E2NGI5bTZjcmo2Y2hwNnBnbTZjaGk2MCB3amhhbWlsdG9uMjk0NjRAbQ&tmsrc=wjhamilton29464%40gmail.com

With properly prepared materials, we should be able to have lots of impressive material on the street for the big "No Kings" weekend, which promises to be the biggest series of Social Justice actions in the State of SC in 50 years. It will begin our Liberate the Lowcountry, Five Weeks for Freedom Campaign which in turn starts a year-long campaign to redeem the entire American Republic before July 4, 2026, the 250th. birthday of the United States of America. 

You can see how the process of making banners and buttons works in this photogallery, which documents twn years of this sort of effort by Lowcountry Up is Good. https://photos.app.goo.gl/KSahZqZavp9DpsEH6

Most banners are painted on canvas, hall runner drop cloths. By far the best available are from Chicago Canvass. You can order them on Amazon. You should order your in time to have them blocked and prepared before the event. Two good sizes to start with are

4 feet tall by 15 feet long. 

5 feet tall by 20 feet long. 

On Monday, we'll be "blocking" the raw canvas, which means we'll paint it with white paint. This makes it stronger, making it easier to keep clean and allows us to sprinkle the front with reflective glass beads, which helps make them pop at night. We use recycled paint, which we have plenty of. Bring your canvas by before Monday so we can prepare it. One or two people to help really speeds the process up. 

On Saturday, we'll begin by painting any banners we already have traced. Once it is dark, we can start tracing and painting all the new ones. Designs need to be prepared like a coloring book in PDF in the appropriate proportions. We use our data projector to put the design on the canvas and then trace with carpenters pencils. 

Button making, image left, is easy and a great way to reach and involve people. We currently have the only button machine in active use in the progressive community, but they're not expensive and once you have the hang o fit, we hope to see more deployed. 

We'lll be serving a simple PASTA dinner with Vegan and Meat Sauce and a basic salad. We love to cook and If you do too, but you don't like to paint, make buttons or design stuff, we'll have plenty of work in the kitchen. 

If we have the people, we want to do some online content development and produce some music and video recordsings. The MAGA is loud. We plan to get bigger and louder.. After this workshop, you'll be able to do all this stuff yourself. 

However, it is more fun to do it this way, with a house full of excited, positive people. 

If you are a MAGA toying with the idea of attempting to be present at this event, please reconsider. 32 Sowell is the home of the brave. We aren't your Mother's Southern Liberals. You won't be here long. We won't tolerate you in the house or yard. My Republican neighbors won't tolerate you on the street.  The police won't want you in either location. 

Please give us your input and ideas

William J. Hamilton, III
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
(843) 870-5299

AWOL Lindsey Graham Town Hall Set for May 29

Lindsey Graham has been AWOL since 2017. He's absent from the state he represents. He is invisible in Washington. Graham has become "Aways Whimping Out Lindsey." 

Join sponor Indivisible Summerville and others on Thursday, May 29 at 6:15 pm at the Scottish Rite Temple 1051 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. West of the Ashley for a Town Hall, where Graham may not report for duty, but the citizens he represents will. 

Here is a link to the location and images of the auditorium.

The Lowcountry is represented by two congresspersons and two U.S. senators. Forceful and dignified, sometimes wrong-headed representation, such as that once offered by Strom Thurmond, Mendel Rivers, and Fritz Hollings, has faded out of recollection.

Starting in 1980, the Lowcountry began to elect lesser people. Arthur Ravenel, Mark Sanford and Jim DeMint didn't bring the force to represent the people who voted for them in the Lowcountry. 

They have in turn been replaced by an even weaker, sometimes bizarrely distracted new group of Republicans. 

The cost has been staggering. The once mighty Navy Base, replete with high-paying jobs, is now a slowly evolving real estate development zone pocked with empty slabs where buildings that could have been used rotted to the ground. Local wages have slumped. Our cost of living here has skyrocketed. Transportation has become gridlocked. The long-promised, Lowcountry Rapid Transit System depends on threatened federal funding none of the current Republicans representing us seems to care about. 

This new generation of Republican leaders can't bring home the bacon. They refuse to deliver on policy. They enable the psychopathic cretin living at 1600 Pennsyvania Av. 

Senators Graham and Scott both ran against Donald Trump for President. They know he's unfit. Congresswoman Mace voted to impeach Trump in 2021. 

However, they're unwilling to gamble on the support of the people, voters, and taxpayers they represent and protect us. They do the will of the lobbyists who give them campaign contributions, and serve Donald Trump.  They all avoid real interaction with voters, opting for tightly controlled meetings on private property or no real contact at all. Most of the time, they're phones aren't answered. The hear the MAGA mob. They don't listen to us. 

Trump is taking FEMA apart, but we know how essential that support is after a Hurricane. Hugo wasn't fake news. Our port is a major employer with good, high-paying, often union jobs, but Trump's tariffs threaten the import of parts for Volvo and BMW, which go out as part of their exported cars later. The massive amounts of food provided to local food banks and assistance programs have dried up. Whole programs have been defunded at MUSC and the College of Charleston. 

Nancy Mace obsesses about Bathrooms. Tim Scott hardly comes out of hiding. Lindsey Graham is AWOL. 

While that may stand for Aways Whimping Out Lindsey here, it's actual military meaning is Absent Without Official Leave. The military punishes AWOL because it opens gaps in our system of defense. . Its a dereliction of duty. The most important military and economic power in the Western Hemisphere is in the hands of a psychopath. Judges, harmless tourists, green card holders, and American Citizens who just look Hispanic are being arrested.

Trump wants to ram through his "Big bill" before anyone can read it. It's so full of toxic landmines and Trojan horse terrors we all need to set down and go over it. Graham, as our Senior Senator needs to go first. He and his staff are paid well for that work.

We do not need him AWOL from listening to his constituents during the recess. He can chill out at his Sullivan's Island Beach House some this recess, but we have to talk. 

In an ideal world (which SC has never been in it's 350 years of slavery, rebellion, segregation and oppression) our Senator would invite us to a meeting room in a government-owned public building. They would take and answer our questions. Afterwards, they would get selfies with our kids. We might disagree, but we would communicate. 

We disagreed with Mark Sanford a lot, but he turned up all over the district, all the time. Hollings knew what the pending legislation before him did, and his staff often called with detailed updates. If you could handle it, they often had questions for you to help them do their job. 

There is no reason Lindsey Graham can't do this on Thursday. He has staff. He is in town. Local activist groups have paid for the room. It seats 350 citizens, image right. We need to fill it.

We'll have new AWOL Graham buttons for the first 50 people through the door.  

All the seats for the No Show Nancy Town Hall earlier this Spring at Mt. Pleasant Town Hall were full. Plenty of Republicans were present. We all sang America the Beautiful at the end. The citizens showed up and did their part. Nancy Mace ignored us. We'll remember in November 2026.

This Thursday, we do it again. Graham needs to be there. He probably won't be. Graham's staff will pore over the archived livestream video later, picking through the political tea leaves. 

You may get more actual attention out of Thursday from Graham's people than Sanford or Hollings ever gave you in person, since they did this sort of thing several times a week. They wanted to know and knew the people they represented. For Graham, Scott and Mace, hearing from anything but the hand-picked supporters at some private country club dining room is as rare as a sit-down with the residents of North Seuntinel Island. 

Maybe the natives are hostile, but Graham took the job. We need to be there Thursday. So does our Senator.

#chsresist

#TIDEACT 

#scpol

Lowcountry Resistance will Cohere and Grow Using #chsresist Hashtag

The growing size and energy of Lowcountry resistance efforts since the election of the Trump/Musk/Putin administration is encouraging, but it's nearly impossible for anyone to know what is going on.

Image, Right, Protest Music from throughout America's history of Struggle, some updated for the moment, was a sing along concert at the Unitarian Church on March 15

Join the #chsresist 

Effective Immediately DiversCity Charleston, Lowcountry Up is Good PAC and Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will begin inserting hashtag #chsresist in all our resistance related posts. We invite

other progressive resistance and community support efforts to do the same. 

While many local progressives are attempting to migrate to Bluesky, finding a Lowcountry progressive focus within that online community has been difficult. A simple hashtag will fix that. If you haven't signed up for Bluesky, please do so. Evidence mounts that Facebook is becoming too dysfunctional to rely on. My feed there is https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

Until this hashtag is widely adopted, your best chance of getting a comprehensive feed of what is going on is to monitor the Facebook feed of Pastor Thomas Dixon

Local print and broadcast media are under tremendous pressure to black out progressive activity. They and their advertisers are threatened when they cover us. While we continue to agonize over decisions about boycotting businesses, an organized effort in place for over 15 years threatens to boycott any organization that advertises on media which covers our activities. While a few reports are published to avoid outing the existence of this effort, we can't rely on media to do our communicating for us any longer. 

Using #chsresist will allow us to use apps to monitor all our social media, connect with our friends and make our stand on this precious blue island along the coast more effective and rewarding. 

Image, Presenting former Congressman Mark Sanford with the big petition for Transit at a morning constituent meet and greet in Awendaw, 2017 (probably). 

April 5 Efforts Building

There is a massive cluster of local resistance actions developing around April 5, a day selected for National Resistance which is also Charleston's biggest tourism weekend of the year. The Bridge Run, Tennis Tournament and Charleston Festival (Formerly the House Tours) fill our city with tourists. It's the day to show 50 thousand visitors that #chsresists. We'll be organizing a demonstration on Daniel Island entitled Ace Mace, Chip and Charge! to offer Representative Mace the opportunity to return to representing her district instead of working for Trump/Musk/Putin. 

As much as we often disagreed with Mark Sanford, he did respond to us, was always friendly and clearly respected us as citizens. We contributed to his defeat in the 2018 Republican Primary. Mark even though we still believe we needed different policies and contributed to your defeat, we have to admit we miss you and the old days now. 

More  Information

about Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC and our 10 year effort to build a Lowcountry which has functional public transit, affordable housing and a living wage. 

• Call Executive Director William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or email him at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
• Follow us on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

Released March 16, 2025, Mt. Pleasant, SC

Legal Observer Effort Launched by Pettigru Free Speech Defense in Charleston, SC

Mount Pleasant, SC, May 22, 2025- William Hamilton, will appear as a legal observer at upcoming demonstrations in the SC Lowcountry. A social justice advocate for 50 years, it’s now clear that he no longer needs to work at organizing regular demonstrations, but needs to shift his efforts to protecting free speech and citizen’s rights in the many demonstrations, protests and social justice actions now being presented in and around Charleston, SC.

The Legal Observer effort is an effort of Pettigrew Free Speech Defense, a project of Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. 

Image, right, credential badge worn by non-attorney Citizen Legal Observers working on the project. 

Right, part of demonstration along Folly Road

Hamilton deploys with a body camera, live internet feed, and team of trained activists who operate separately from the demonstrators themselves. The goal is to gather evidence which can be used in court to protect the constitutional rights of the demonstration participants and community at large from the increasingly repressive attempts of some local governments to strip ordinary Lowcountry Citizens of their rights while turning control of the region over to right-wing political operatives and their millionaire supporters, the “Petite Oligarchs.” 

Download printable 4 up information postcards for this effort

The project will be expanded as new observers are trained and coordinated with the existing ACLU legal observer project. Specialized local training will supplement the nationally focused ACLU effort. Anyone interested in helping should take the ACLU online training now. Participation in the Pettigrew Legal Observer program requires completing the ACLU program first. We'll complete your local training with education on local history and issues as well as current litigation and our long term goal or establsihing a vital free speech culture in the SC Lowcountry, to supplant the established Plantation culture patronage model. 

Hamilton is an attorney (SC Bar #2632), writer and activist born in 1959 and admitted to the SC Bar on November 25, 1985. He has been litigating cases in Federal, Civil, Family and Municipal Courts for over 39 years. He is lead counsel in Brown v. Charleston, a free speech case pending in SC Federal District Court before Judge Norton, seeking to have Charleston’s anti-free speech ordinance declared unconstitutional, null and void. 

Hamilton has himself organized and conducted over 100 demonstrations in the SC Lowcountry. These have included the April 2025 Ace Mace Demonstration; the 1992 Rally in the Alley for Reproductive Choice; the Place at the Table Demonstration Demanding George Bush meet with ordinary citizens during his presidential visit to Charleston in 1990; and the 2012 Block the Boat action which shut down the Port of Charleston for several hours and helped millions of workers in Bangladesh obtain better working conditions and higher wages.  

Left- Town Hall held in Mount Pleasant for Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who refused to attend. 

Hamilton is a lifetime resident of South Carolina and his family has been in the state since 1695. He has written over a million published words about Lowcountry culture, society and history in the Post and Courier, Moultrie News, Poor William’s Omnibus, The Point, The Doormat, and the Little Bird. Hamilton is the Executive Director of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. and Lowcountry Up is Good, Inc., PAC which conducts Free Speech protection as part of its Pettigru Free Speech defense project. He received the City of Charleston Spotlight award for community leadership in 2019 and the I’On Community Civitas Award in 2004. 

Hamilton was severely burned in April 2025 while making Rosa Parks pancakes at a demonstration at Brittlebank Park when the city refused use of a table under its anti-free speech ordinance. He received 3rd degree burns and was treated in the burn ward of the MUSC hospital for four weeks. He has since been discharged and is now healing. He anticipates a return to all of his commitments shortly. 

He lives in Mount Pleasant, SC at the “Home of the Brave” in the I’On Community. Hamilton is handfasted to his better half, Wendy Temple (jewelry artist, writer and activist) and was married to the late Julia B. Hamilton (musician, writer & activist) for 34 years. He is the father of W. Jackson Hamilton, IV, also an activist. Hamilton enjoys sailing, cooking and baking and burning man activities in which he is known as "Oatmeal." 

Hamilton is convinced that 2025 is the most significant wave of activism in his lifetime (with the exception of the 1969 hospital strike led by his friend and adoptive mother Louise Brown) and others.

Right- Women's Day march in N. Charleston.

It is Hamilton's belief that unless the direction of culture and government in the SC Lowcountry changes, that the region has no rewarding futures available for young people. Low wages, inadequate transportation, high housing costs, inadequate schools and weak healthcare options for many will continue to drive the remaining social and politically competent citizens out of the region, making reform impossible. He is convinced this is the intended goal of the current Mayor of the City of Charleston and his collaborators on City Council. He has witnessed hundreds of his friends being driven out of the region so that resistance becomes overwhelmingly demanding on the surviving cadre of mostly older activists. 

At the same time, the City of Charleston is actively recruiting a new class of multimillionaire residents from other places to supplant the eroded Planter Class which has controlled the city for 350 years. The city is implicitly promising these “Petit Oligarchs” a city drained of it’s civic vitality, freedom and diversity where they can be indulged and catered to at the expense of the city’s middle and working class residents. The Holy City will become a playground for the semi rich, people wealthy enough to be important here who couldn’t impress the billionaires of New York. 

Hampton Park demonstrations- Charleston refuses to allow the use of adequate public address systems. 

Hamilton comes from a family who has fought native Americans, the Spanish, the French, The British, the Union, the Germans and the Japanese. His ancestors have built two towns, three churches and two schools. He is unwilling to surrender his birthright and the rights of others to the privileged assumptions of those who believe they can buy what his family’s blood has already paid for. 

Hamilton will begin his work as a legal observer in May 2025 and will build a team of trained observers following the model tested by the ACLU. You do not need to be an attorney to participate. 

For more information contact:

William J. Hamilton, III
Attorney at Law
Executive Director, Lowcountry Up is Good, Inc. (Petigru Free Speech Defense Project
Ph. (843) 870-529(
Email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
Blue Sky https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

#TIDEact

#chsresist

Fight for Free Speech in the Federal Court

 Brown V. Charleston - Defending Free Speech in the Federal Court

Charleston, SC, May 20, 2025- Brown v. Charleston, # 2:25-cv-2649 DCN MHC,  is a Lawsuit filed in the US District Court for South Carolina/Charleston Division In March 2025 seeking to protect the free speech rights of people (Citizens and Non-citizens) who need to exercise their right of free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The case is being presided over by Judge David Norton. 

William J. Hamilton, III, Attorney at Law is representing and appearing as a Plaintiff in this action. He has been an attorney in SC for over 40 years and has been working as a social justice activist for 50 years. He is the Executive Director of Lowcountry Up is Good, Inc. PAC and Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. 

You can read the Complaint filed with the Court which states what the City has been doing wrong and what relief the Plaintiffs are seeking and the Memorandum Filed with the Court for April 4th. Hearing. 

Scan QR Code at left to reach this page on your mobile device

Action in this matter was suspended when Attorney William Hamilton received third degree burns while making “Rosa Parks” Pancakes during a demonstration in Brittlebank Park, injuries probably aggravated when the City of Charleston prohibited organizers from using tables as part of their event. He was hospitalized for four weeks at the MUSC burn ward, but has now been released. Progress on the case will resume shortly. 

Anyone interested in the case should establish a PACER account (Public Access to Court Electronic Documents) so they can read all the documents filed by both sides in the Lawsuit, including the documents filed by the city which may be helpful to those applying for permits in the City. 

It’s already clear municipalities across the region and their Police Departments are alarmed at the great increase in free speech and progressive political activity across the region and the possible threat it might pose to officials facing re-election in this November’s municipal election. Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit recently encountered obstacles to basic leafleting in Summerville while doing outreach work identical to that which they had been doing at that location in that fashion for ten years without challenge or problem. 

These municipalities and their police departments are trading ideas and strategies on ways to discourage political activity and ideas which might change the Lowcountry for the better and bring things like higher wages, better transit, affordable housing, improved education and accessible healthcare to ordinary citizens. Anything happening in Charleston now will soon be a problem elsewhere. Established political forces are frustrated that Trump’s sudden extremism has activated large scale local opposition which might doom their long term plan to discourage people who want something better until they leave, quit or die. This is the 3E strategy, exile, exhaust or expire. 

We’re ready to help organizations across the Lowcountry work together to be sure we use the power of the Federal Court to protect the First Amendment. We’re preparing a motion to file to be sure activists aren’t unfairly deprived of their right to use public address systems, tents and tables at their events. 

We Need Your Help

However, if we are going to be able to help you, you need to help us. There are several important and effective things you can do. 

Image, Judge Norton of the US District Court.

1. Establish a PACER account and follow developments in the case as they are filed. Use the documents to learn about the issues, local government policies and the court’s decisions so you can be better prepared to use and maintain your right to assemble, speak and organize your efforts. 

2. Join the Case as a Plaintiff. We are currently seeking one or more additional persons to serve as Plaintiffs in the Case. All three of the current Plaintiffs are over age 65 and together represent 160+ years of social justice activism, however we would like to add some younger people to the head of the case since it is the future of their rights which we are litigating. City of Charleston residents who have been active in the local fight for social justice are most needed. 

3. Record and maintain records. Take notes and collect video regarding any encounter with anyone, government official or otherwise who attempts to interfere with your freedom of speech, in person or online. Keep detailed notes as events are happening and save copies of all documents. In some cases, we’ll be able to file your records and an affidavit from you stating what is happening with the court. 

4. Share what you are learning and what effective strategies you have found for using and protecting your free speech with us and other activists. 

5. Show up when we have hearing in Court so the community will understand that there is real support for free speech here. 

6. Sign up for our emails so we can keep you updated. 

7. Follow us on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social and search for posts tagged #chsresist or #TIDEact.

8. Contribute to support our effort through ACT Blue. We need to pay for the expenses of taking depositions, printing and filing fees. William Hamilton will only be paid fees from the Defendant, City of Charleston at the end of the case if we win. He is not being compensated from your contributions. 

Thank You

We understand how frightened, impatient and scared that many of you are at the staggering recent erosion of once commonplace opportunities to impact the political system in the Lowcountry. We know we are less free here than we have been at any time in most of our lives.

Judge Norton is a fine judge. He will give us a fair and patient hearing. He can, however, only consider the facts and law we put before him. If you will help us do that, we believe we can reverse most of the damage that has been done to your constitutional freedoms in a city now being run for the benefit of the rich, tourists, and real estate developers. 

We will continue to pursue this case against the City of Charleston until we obtain a just result. We are prepared to file actions against any Lowcountry government or private entity which attempts to strangle free speech. We would warn local governments considering a quiet capitulation to local MAGA pressure groups that fighting us in court will be long, expensive and ultimately humiliating for you. Even in South Carolina, freedom will not fade away without a fight. 

Feel free to contact us with your ideas or questions. 

Contact Information

William J. Hamilton, III
Attorney at Law
Executive Director, Lowcountry Up is Good, Inc. (Petigru Free Speech Defense Project)

Ph. (843) 870-5299

Email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
Blue Sky https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

#TIDEact
#chsresist