A Conversation with Travis Boyce: How We Got Over and Through Jim Crow (Spartanburg, SC)

Feb 27, 2025 @ 5:30pm - 7:30pm | Location: University of South Carolina Upstate, Campus Life Center 310, 180 Gramling Dr, Spartanburg, SC 29303

Feb 27, 2025 @ 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Location: University of South Carolina Upstate, Campus Life Center 310, 180 Gramling Dr, Spartanburg, SC 29303
Hosted by: Center for Africana & African American Studies, University of South Carolina Upstate

Join us for a Black History Month conversation featuring author Travis D. Boyce.

Travis will discuss how Black Americans survived during the Jim Crow era and highlight themes featured in his recent book, Steady and Measured: A Black College President in the Jim Crow South.

Travis D. Boyce considers the full sweep of Benner C. Turner's life and career in the context of the contrary pressures of white and Black authority. Borrowing an expression from Michelle Obama's remarks to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Boyce casts Turner, long-serving president of South Carolina State University, as a steady and measured leader who preserved the limited resources his historically Black institution possessed in the face of often hostile social, political, and economic power structures.

Previous accounts of Turner and his SC State presidency portray him as unwilling to criticize the state's white power structure and unable to contend with their open resistance to civil rights. Boyce argues that the modern view of Turner flattens a complex terrain, often relying selectively on hostile sources, underplaying the political constraints on presidents of publicly funded HBCUs in the South. Considering Turner in a richer context, with a deep awareness of Turner's early life formative influences, Boyce provides a more complete critical examination of his leadership in trying times.

Travis D. Boyce is associate professor and chair of the department of African American Studies at San Jose State University. He is the coeditor of Historicizing Fear: Ignorance, Vilification, and Othering.

Hosted by the Center for Africana & African American Studies at University of South Carolina Upsate.