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South Carolina

Peter Wood’s “Black Majority” turns 50

John Fea   |  January 8, 2025

When I started teaching colonial American history twenty-five years ago, Peter Wood’s Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina was on the syllabus. I used to teach it alongside Edmund Morgan’s American Slavery-American Freedom. (Today my students no […]

See you this weekend in Anderson, South Carolina!

John Fea   |  September 20, 2024

I will be in Anderson, SC this weekend for some lectures. My host is the Anderson Forum for Progressive Theology. Learn more here.

Trump court evangelical Mark Burns advances to a runoff for the GOP nomination in South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District

John Fea   |  June 13, 2024

Readers of this blog know pastor Mark Burns. In July 2016, he offered a prayer at the GOP National Convention. He asked God to defeat the “liberal democrats” and said that the Republican Party is the “conservative party under God.” […]

New poll: Haley trails Trump by 26 in South Carolina

John Fea   |  February 1, 2024

Nikki Haley was a two-term governor of South Carolina, but this does not give her a home-field advantage in the 2024 GOP primary scheduled to take place later this month. A new Monmouth University-Washington Post poll has Trump at 58% […]

Two quick thoughts on Joe Biden campaigning in South Carolina over the weekend

John Fea   |  January 29, 2024

Two quick thoughts this morning: Yes, Biden is old. But he does not lack energy: Churches are sacred spaces. They are places where the Gospel–the Good News–is proclaimed. Keep politics and political candidates out of the pulpit:

Nikki Haley should “go for broke” and “gently smack that gum” out of Trump’s mouth

John Fea   |  January 26, 2024

Yesterday I suggested that Nikki Haley should, to use the words of writer Michael Wood, give Trump the “full Liz Cheney.” Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal seems to agree. Here is a taste of her column “Nikki Haley […]

It’s time for Nikki Haley to go “full Liz Cheney” on Trump

John Fea   |  January 25, 2024

I am watching Sara Longwell, the publisher of The Bulwark, on CNN right now. She is calling on Nikki Haley to “go down swinging” in South Carolina. She wants the former South Carolina governor to give Trump the “full Liz […]

Nikki Haley is moving to South Carolina and Trump is not happy about it

John Fea   |  January 24, 2024

Trump won New Hampshire last night, but he remained obsessed with Nikki Haley. A normal politician would have acknowledged that Haley ran a good campaign and then ignored her in the rest of the speech, knowing she had little chance […]

South Carolina senator Tim Scott will endorse Trump

John Fea   |  January 19, 2024

In 2012, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley needed to appoint a U.S. senator after Jim DeMint retired from the senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation. Haley chose a second term U.S. congressman named Tim Scott to finish the […]

The Author’s Corner with Lindsay Schakenbach Regele

Rachel Petroziello   |  January 3, 2024

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele is Graduate Studies Director and Associate Professor of History at Miami University. This interview is based on her new book, Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism (University of Chicago Press, […]

The Author’s Corner with Travis D. Boyce

Rachel Petroziello   |  November 17, 2023

Travis D. Boyce is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at San José State University. This interview is based on his new book, Steady and Measured: Benner C. Turner, A Black College President in the […]

The International African American Museum opens in Charleston

John Fea   |  July 12, 2023

Here is Holland Cotter at The New York Times: In Charleston Harbor, where the initiating shots of the Civil War were fired — Fort Sumter is distantly visible — I’m on the site of a former shipping pier known as Gadsden’s […]

The Author’s Corner with Kimberly R. Kellison

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 21, 2023

Kimberly R. Kellison is Associate Professor of History & Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. This interview is based on her new book, Forging a Christian Order: South Carolina Baptists, Race, and Slavery, 1696–1860 […]

Should women who have abortions get the death penalty? 21 South Carolina legislators think they should

John Fea   |  March 15, 2023

Have you heard about the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023? Twenty-one Republicans in the South Carolina General Assembly are supporting it. Here is Stephen Neukam at The Hill: Republican lawmakers in South Carolina are considering a change […]

“No political figure better illustrates the tragic collapse of the modern Republican Party than Nikki Haley.”

John Fea   |  February 13, 2023

Stuart Stevens is a veteran of both the George W. Bush and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. Here is his take on 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, published today at The New York Times: I remember the first time I saw […]