Social Justice Advocates Plan April 5 Demonstration near Daniel Island Office of Nancy Mace

 

Social Justice Advocates Plan April 5 Demonstration near Daniel Island Office of Nancy Mace

The Fight to Save Public Transit and Affordable Housing in the Lowcountry will be one of the focus of a major social justice demonstration action being planned for Saturday, April 5 near the Daniel Island office of US Representative Nancy Mace. The demonstration will include delegations from a coalition of human rights and economic justice organizations from the 1^st Congressional District and Lowcountry including those committed to healthcare, reproductive rights, civil rights, the living wage, education, affordable housing and transit. The demonstration will prove local opposition to the devastating cuts planned to these programs in the Trump/Musk budget which Mace has voted for in a preliminary bill.  

Image, right, William Hamilton, outside the Office of US Representative Nancy Mace on Daniel Island after an advocacy visit to her staff on Feb. 26, 2025. 

This demonstration is scheduled to commemorate the 158^th anniversary of a demonstration in downtown Charleston where African Americans and their supporters confronted a city guard (the police department of that era) composed of former Confederate soldiers at the four corners of law. This confrontation was a part of the two month long successful struggle to desegregate Charleston’s then new, horse drawn streetcars. During the demonstration (also called a riot by some observers) the US Army of Occupation turned out a company of Black Federal soldiers to protect the African Americans and preserve order. No one was killed during the tense confrontation, which took place in the first weeks of Federally enforced reconstruction. Mary Bowers, the Rosa Parks of Charleston would go on to help lead the struggle, demanding the right to ride on Meeting street two weeks later and ultimately winning it for all Charlestonians in early May.

You can read a detailed account of this and other related events in spring of 1867 in Voices of Black South Carolina by Damon L. Fordham, pp. 29-33, History Press, 2009.

Demonstrations and social justice actions executed in Charleston and the Lowcountry this Spring will be linked to events in that historic struggle to win the right to ride which will continue to Memorial weekend, when it is hoped the long fought for Beach Reach CARTA Shuttle will survive budget cuts to return transit to the Atlantic. 

Image, Left, Protestors demonstrating support for Ukraine, Charleston, SC at the US Customs House, Feb. 24, 2025

The Organizers, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. and Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. plan to seek a permit for the demonstration from the City of Charleston Police Department. No violence or destruction of property is planned as part of this peaceful demonstration. Participants will be required to sign up online prior to participating. An overflow standby area will be established and the demonstration will be three hours long, conducted in two 90 minute shifts. An after event is being planned.

Education advocates will be asked to wear red; healthcare & reproductive rights advocates blue; Transit advocates green; housing advocates brown; labor advocates yellow (reflective vests) and gender identity advocates pridewear.

Image, left, Louise Brown, "The Mother of the Movement" (wearing the green mask) a veteran of the 1960s Civil Rights movement, One of the Twelve nurses who led the MUSC Hospital Strike of 1969, will help lead the effort. 

This demonstration is scheduled to take place during the finals of the Credit One Charleston Open, the largest women’s only tennis tournament in North America. It will be conducted on public property in accordance with the rights and privledges reserved to citizens under the First and Fourtneenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and with the supervision and help of a team of Experience, SC Licensed Attorneys trained in Civil Rights and Social Justice Advocacy issues, led by William J. Hamilton, III, Lowcountry Attorney,  activist and writer.

For more information contact

William J. Hamilton, III
Ex. Dir.
Best Friends of Lowocuntry Transit, Inc. & Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc.
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
(843) 870-5299
Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social