Cecil Williams on Panel for 70th Anniversary of South Carolina Schools Desegregation Speech

Sep 30, 2025 @ 3pm | Location: USC Museum of Education in Wardlaw College, 820 Main Street, Columbia, SC 29208

Sep 30, 2025 @ 3pm
Location: USC Museum of Education in Wardlaw College, 820 Main Street, Columbia, SC 29208
Hosted by: USC Museum of Education

Join us in USC's Museum of Education to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Chester Travelstead's speech on the desegregation of South Carolina Schools. There will be a reading of the speech followed by a panel discussion on the meaning and legacy of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and Travelstead’s advocacy for it.

In 1955 Chester Travelstead, dean of education at USC, delivered a speech, “Today’s Decisions for Tomorrow’s Schools,” in Drayton Hall to students and faculty. He said: “It is my firm conviction that enforced segregation of the races in our public schools can no longer be justified on any basis – and should, therefore, be abolished as soon as practicable.” As a result of this speech, he was fired by USC. The University of New Mexico hired him soon thereafter where he had a distinguished career as dean, vice-president, and provost. Their education building is named for him. At USC, the Travelstead Room and the Travelstead Award for Courage in Education are named in his honor.

The discussion panelists will include Cecil Williams, founder of the South Carolina Civil Rights Museum whose photographs appear in Injustice in Focus, and Derek Black, professor of law at USC and author of many works on civil rights and education, most recently, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy. The discussion will be moderated by Danielle Cook Sumpter, professor of education and curator of the upcoming exhibit, “Legacies of Black Education in the South & Beyond: Histories, Ecologies, Pedagogies.”

View the College of Education event page.

Photo of Briggs v. Elliot petitioners courtesy of Cecil Williams.