Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

History

First Advisor

Patricia Sullivan

Abstract

The 1957 Johns Island Citizenship School emerged from the everyday actions of local leaders like Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, and Bernice Robinson as a foundational site of grassroots pedagogy and organizing that reshaped the political landscape of the South Carolina Sea Islands. Situated within the critical years between 1957 and 1961, a formative moment in the modern Black freedom struggle, the school demonstrates how local activism laid the groundwork for broader regional and national movements. In a state where literacy tests functioned as mechanisms of disenfranchisement, learning to read and write became a direct challenge to systems of exclusion. Through the Progressive Club, which combined a cooperative store, community center, and classroom, the Citizenship School linked literacy, economic independence and political participation. This thesis traces the school from its founding to its expansion under the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), showing how Robinson and Clark’s philosophies of adult education, alongside the Club’s mutual-aid networks, enabled residents not only to register to vote but to build durable political infrastructures. By centering these early years, this study highlights the Citizenship School as a formative model of grassroots organizing, demonstrating how education, collective action, and community engagement made democratic participation possible.

Rights

© 2026, Anne Elizabeth Mineri

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