By The Charleston Chronicle

The South Carolina African American Heritage Commission will host its annual awards luncheon at 1 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, at the South Carolina Archives and History Center in Columbia. The organization will recognize outstanding programs, people and initiatives that protect, preserve and promote African American heritage in the Palmetto State.

The keynote speaker for the ceremony will be Michael Boulware Moore, CEO and President of the International African American Museum currently under construction in Charleston. Musical renditions will be performed by the Claflin University Concert Choir. Moore has deep roots in Charleston as the great-great-grandson of Robert Smalls. Smalls was an enslaved African who, in 1862, took command of a Confederate ship in the Charleston Harbor, sailed it past five Confederate forts in the Atlantic Ocean, and then turned it over to Union forces winning his freedom and that of his family and crew. He then became a captain in the Union Army. After the Civil War, he was elected to both houses of the South Carolina Legislature and to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Tickets for the awards luncheon are $25 and can be purchased in advance at scaaheritagefound.org.

The following awards will be given:

Trending

Project 2025

Individual Award – This award recognizes a person who has demonstrated or made an outstanding accomplishment in preserving and interpreting African American history and culture in South Carolina during 2018.

Group or Organization Award – This award recognizes a group or organization that has demonstrated or made an outstanding accomplishment in preserving and interpreting African American history and culture in South Carolina during 2018

Project Award – This award recognizes a project that has significantly and dramatically influenced in a permanent way the preservation and interpretation of African American history and culture in South Carolina during 2018.

Student Award – This award recognizes a current college student who has a great interest in, and has completed noteworthy work towards, the preservation of African American history and culture in South Carolina during 2018.

Legislator of the Year Award – This award recognizes a legislator who has endorsed the preservation of African American history and culture in South Carolina and/or solicited funding through the South Carolina legislature for causes, groups or organizations that support the preservation of African American history and culture in 2018.

For more information, contact Jannie Harriot at scaaheritagefound@gmail.com or 843-332-3589.

This article originally appeared in the Charleston Chronicle. 

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post