A Dream Deferred Book Launch and Author Talk with M. Akua McDaniel

Feb 11, 2026 @ 6:30pm - 9pm | Location: The Nickelodeon, 1607 Main Street Columbia, SC 29201

Feb 11, 2026 @ 6:30pm - 9pm
Location: The Nickelodeon, 1607 Main Street Columbia, SC 29201
Hosted by: The Nickelodeon

Join us for a book launch and author talk with M. Akua McDaniel and learn about Edwin Augustus Harleston, one of South Carolina's most significant visual artists as detailed in her new book, A Dream Deferred: The Art and Activism of Edwin Augustus Harleston.

Excluded from the Charleston Renaissance because of his race and pushed to the edges of the Harlem Renaissance by geography and circumstance, Edwin Augustus Harleston was an artist caught between worlds. Despite being marginalized within his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, during his lifetime, Harleston nonetheless pursued his career as a painter, first at Charleston's Avery Institute, later at Atlanta University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Harleston received commissions and had gallery exhibitions that received critical praise in northern cities. When the demands of family pulled him back to Charleston, where he struggled to find the same freedom or acclaim that he had enjoyed in the North.

In A Dream Deferred, Akua McDaniel offers the first comprehensive biography of Harleston. McDaniel considers not only his efforts to redefine the image of Black life in American visual culture, but she also examines Harleston's life as a social and political activist, including his role in founding the first NAACP chapter in South Carolina. McDaniel offers a full portrait of Harleston's life and career, one that had an outsized impact on the American art world, and beyond.

Akua McDaniel is retired associate professor of art history at Spelman College. She was founding director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and is the nation's leading scholar of Edwin A. Harleston.

In collaboration with The Nickelodeon, this event serves as the official launch of A Dream Deferred and includes a screening of the documentary Tenacity: The Story of Edwin and Elise Harleston, which examines the lives and work of Edwin Harleston and his wife, photographer Elise Forrest Harleston, and their shared commitment to countering the misrepresentation of Black Americans through art and photography.

Author Akua McDaniel and filmmaker Charles Kaufman will both be in attendance for discussion and audience Q&A.

Evening Schedule

• 5:45–6:15 PM – Conversation with Akua McDaniel and Dr. Tolson, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of African American Studies at USC
• 6:25–6:30 PM – Film introduction by Charles Kaufman
• 6:30 PM – Screening of Tenacity: The Story of Edwin and Elise Harleston
• 8:36 PM – Post-film Q&A with Akua McDaniel and Charles Kaufman
• 9:00 PM – Book signing

Copies of A Dream Deferred will be available for purchase at the event.

Tickets: $12

Purchase tickets on The Nick event page.