JOHNS ISLAND — Abraham “Bill” Jenkins is happy to see his father’s life and work honored like this.
“It brings awareness of what happened,” he said, as he waited for Wells Fargo Bank to unveil a new mural at its Freshfields branch.
What happened was an extended effort to empower African Americans on the sea islands of South Carolina. What happened was a literacy campaign and voter registration drive.
What happened was that a community of isolated African Americans, marginalized and abused by their government, began to rise up and claim their rights.
Bill Jenkins’ father, Esau Jenkins, worked closely with Septima Clark and others to improve the lives of Johns Island residents. And now Wells Fargo was paying tribute to that effort.
The mural, a graphic rendering and assemblage of various photographs, features Jenkins, Clark, folklorist-musician and civil rights activist Guy Carawan, Andrew Young, golfer Henry Picard and a few others who made a big difference here.
“We want to honor folks who’ve made a lasting impression on the people we serve,” Region Bank President Justin Hawkins said. “It’s our hope that this mural inspires an interest in this unique history for years to come.”
It will greet everyone who walks in the door of the bank branch.
Beth Currie, who runs Wells Fargo’s mural program, said the bank has installed 2,000 of them across the U.S.
“It’s a way of giving back,” she said. “It’s an acknowledgement of history.”
Her colleague, Robbie Leininger, conducted the research that informed the mural. Graphic designer Anne Marie Lapitan assembled the images.
Andrea Casey, Elaine Jenkins and Kay Wyetta Grimball Colleton look at images of Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, Guy Carawan and Henry Picard during an unveiling of a new Wells Fargo Bank mural on Nov. 2, 2022, on Johns Island. Gavin McIntyre/Staff
Hawkins said the mural is meant as a gesture of respect. It is part of a larger endeavor to better serve minority communities. For example, when the COVID pandemic hit, the bank set up its Open for Business Fund to process federal Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, money. Wells Fargo paid out $84 million in philanthropic capital to Community Development Financial Institutions, which assisted perhaps 16,000 minority-owned businesses.
Then it donated $400 million in gross PPP processing fees, setting aside about $250 million of that money for use by Community Development Financial Institutions.
The bank also partners with nonprofits to distribute microloans, Hawkins said. And it has created Employee Resource Networks to encourage community outreach and volunteerism. Employees who share some affinity form groups that learn about Black history, LGBTQ history and other subjects, then turn their attention to issues facing the communities in which they live and work.
The bank worked with the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center, the Jenkins family, local photographer Nicholas Skylar Holtzworth and Getty Images to devise its new mural.
Jenkins recalled how Septima Clark recruited his father to join the team at the Highlander School in Tennessee. She had been fired in 1956 by the Charleston County School Board because of her membership in the NAACP. (The state Legislature had passed a law forbidding city and state employees from becoming involved with civil rights organizations.) Soon after this, Myles Horton, founder of the Highlander School, hired Clark to be director of workshops and to teach literacy courses.
“She came home one weekend and asked my daddy to go up there,” Bill Jenkins said.
With help from Esau Jenkins and her cousin Bernice Robinson, Clark brought the citizenship school concept to Johns Island, where she used money — “O-N-E D-O-L-L-A-R” — to teach people how to read and write.
Jenkins soon felt empowered to run for the school board but lost in his district for lack of voter turnout, his son recalled. He drove a Volkswagen van, transporting Black workers to their jobs downtown and to the Morris Street Business District and elsewhere.
With Johns Island neighbor Joe Williams he established the Progressive Club in 1948 on River Road, which served as a venue for community meetings, after-school lessons, adult education, entertainment and more. In 1968-69, the Progressive Club became an essential meeting place for organizers of the hospital workers strike.
Nerie Clark (left), the grandson of Septima Clark, and Abraham “Bill” Jenkins, the son of Esau Jenkins, receive copies of the new bank mural during an unveiling at the Freshfields Wells Fargo on Nov. 2, 2022, on Johns Island. Gavin McIntyre/Staff
Nerie Clark, grandson of Septima Clark, told those gathered at the bank branch that his grandmother loved the Charleston area, despite the discrimination and difficulties.
“There was no place else she would live,” he said.
He recounted how he would ride the bus from the Meeting Street Piggly Wiggly up the coast to Atlantic Beach, where African American families would gain access to the ocean. And he shared memories of Highlander, where Guy Carawan taught leadership skills by singing spirituals and folk songs he learned on the sea islands of South Carolina, and where his grandmother devised one of the most important education programs of the late-Jim Crow period.
“It’s really like a walk down memory lane,” he said.
At the end of the presentations, Wells Fargo officials presented the Johns Island-based nonprofit Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach with a $10,000 donation.
Source: news.google.com
