Palmetto Profiles documents the lives and accomplishments of the inductees of the South Carolina Hall of Fame during its first forty years. As Governor John C. West predicted in his dedication speech, the Hall of Fame has indeed become a "vital and integral part of the history and culture of South Carolina." Nearly ninety citizens have been inducted since Apollo 16 astronaut Colonel Charles Duke, Jr., became the first honoree in 1973. Each year one contemporary and one deceased individual is recognized by the hall for outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and progress.
To date, inductees have included political leaders and reformers, artists, writers, scientists, soldiers, clergy, educators, athletes, and others. U.S. president Andrew Jackson, authors Elizabeth Coker and Pat Conroy, jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, artists Jasper Johns and Elizabeth O'Neil Verner, Catawba King Hagler, Generals Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, civil rights leaders Mary McLeod Bethune and Reverend Benjamin E. Mays, U.S. senators J. Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings, and Nobel Prize winning physicist Charles H. Townes are just some of the representative South Carolinians memorialized in the Hall of Fame for their lasting legacies in the Palmetto State and beyond.
Published on the fortieth anniversary of the opening of the South Carolina Hall of Fame and drawn from biographical entries in The South Carolina Encyclopedia, this guidebook presents concise profiles of the inductees from 1973 to 2013. Palmetto Profiles, like the Hall of Fame itself, serves as a tangible link to South Carolina's rich and complex past to the benefit of residents, visitors, and students alike. The volume also includes illustrations of all inductees and a foreword by Walter Edgar, a 2008 Hall of Fame inductee, author of South Carolina: A History, and editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia.
W. Eric Emerson is a trustee of the South Carolina Hall of Fame and the director of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. He is the author of Sons of Privilege: The Charleston Light Dragoons in the Civil War and the coeditor of Faith, Valor, and Devotion: The Civil War Letters of William Porcher DuBose and A Confederate Englishman: The Civil War Letters of Henry Wemyss Feilden.
"Palmetto Profiles, like the Hall of Fame itself, serves as a tangible link to South Carolina's past to the benefits of residents, visitors, and students alike."—Bob Edmonds, Author
"In its first forty years, the South Carolina Hall of Fame has established itself as an inspiring celebration of some of our state's most exemplary citizens. It is my honor to be counted among them. The Hall of Fame, and now this handsome guidebook to the Hall's inductees, teaches us the value of high ideals, impassioned leadership, and the power of the individual citizen who decides to make a difference. I hope Palmetto Profiles emboldens future generations to take the lead and help make South Carolina a place that honors its history while striving for a better, brighter future."—The Honorable Richard W. Riley, former U.S. secretary of education and former South Carolina governor
