Honoring SC's Leading Civil Rights Heroine - Louise Brown
80 Years in Charleston's Struggle for Civi Rights
SC was a battleground in the Civil Rights movement. However, history tends to focus on other states and events. Charleston was always a center of black power and resistance. With three museums in the holy city and one academic institute focused on (and now fighting for the recollected African American experience and history), we're not going to try to cover it all here. Black Charleston has always mattered. You can come to the Holy City and spend a week immersed in the history, eating the food, touring the landscape and hearing the music. An entire fall festival, MOJA is devoted to the Afro-Caribbean experience here. We'll do a page soon with links to people who do this for a living.
These pages are devoted to the extraordinary life of one woman, Louise Brown, who has fought for and continues to fight for social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion for over 80 years. She was with her mother, also an activist, at her first action during the Cigar Factory Strike of 1946. Holding her mother's hand, she head We Shall Overcome sung as a Civil Rights' Anthem for the first time.
The MUSC Hospital Strike of 1969 Showdown
Louise was one of 12 nurses who led the MUSC Hospital Strike of 1969, one of the last major actions of the classical period of the Civil Rights movement. You can learn the history of that struggle in a grainy black and white union documentary made when memory was fresh, I am Somebody on YouTube. You won't know what you haven't been taught or told until you watch it.
Louise was exiled from Charleston like the Grimke Sisters and Judge Waites Waring and lived in New York, by the time she returned to Charleston over a decade later, she was the Matriarch of a powerful family with her children finding success in many fields. She has over 100 descendants. They are a mighty tribe full of educators, nurses and community leaders.
Loise has never stopped being an activist. A month after the Emanuel 9 church shooting, she lead the 4.8 mile March to the Sea to bring public transit in Charleston back to the Atlantic ocean. It was three blazing miles without shade over the Intracoastal Waterway. She led 12 people to the cool waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The march worked. Five years later CARTA returned Transit to the Atlantic.
She continues to fight for social justice to this day. She's currently the Plaintiff is Charleston vs. Brown a case against the City of Charleston in Federal Court filed to return freedom of speech to the people of Charleston. She protested on April 5 as Five million people across the US rose up against Donald Trump. She still leaflets, minds sign up tables and does the regular work of a community organizer.
We've launched this blog to share her story and prepare for a massive four day celebration of her 90 birthday in Charleston on May 1 to 4, 2025.
We thank you for reading. We'll be expanding this over the next few weeks as we prepare for the celebration, but if you really want to know who Louise is, join her on the front lines in Charleston, sit behind her in the courtroom or join the song as she sings.
When she says, "I am somebody!" she means it. It's true. Fight beside her and when you say it, it will be true too.
More Information
You can obtain more information by calling Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. at (843) 870-5299 or emailing wjhamilton29464@gmail.com. Updates will be posted on the Lowcountry Up is Good Facebook page and Blu Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social online. This effort will social media with hashtag #chsresists
By Willam Hamilton
Attorney at Law, Activist, Writer
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
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