October 24th Visit to Penn Center today on Lady's Island

Penn Center is a fairly famous local area that was first founded at a Freedman's Bureau school just after the Civil War, then became a normal/training school.  We did a tour of the museum, and there were a few markers on the property as well.  It was one of several schools established on Saint Helena Island as part of the Port Royal Experiment. The leaders of this experiment were primarily philanthropists, abolitionists, and missionaries from Pennsylvania. They came to the Beaufort area after Union soldiers took control of the Port Royal Sound and forced the Confederates to flee, and their purpose was to help abandoned slaves prepare for freedom by teaching them how to read and survive economically. They named the school in honor of their home state, which in turn had been named for Quaker activist William Penn.  Penn Center has played a tremendous role in the development of African-American culture – and more recently, in its preservation. By the early 1900s it had adopted Booker T. Washington's model of industrial training. This model focused on teaching black people trades like cobbling and carpentry that would help them earn livings. In Washington's own words, he wanted to make them "so skilled in hand, so strong in head, so honest in heart, that the Southern white man cannot do without [the]m."  

The school continued to teach students until the middle of the twentieth century. At this time, after 86 years, the school shifted its focus and began to offer community services such as day care and health training. The change came about for a variety of reasons. One reason was that black families were moving north, causing enrollment to decline. Another important reason was that South Carolina's state and county governments finally began to take steps towards providing a more thorough education for black children. Before 1948, the public school system was only required to educate blacks through the seventh grade.

During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference often met at the Penn Center. The center served as a rare retreat where members of both races could meet peacefully without being threatened or harmed.

More recently, Penn's leaders have turned their attention to preserving the unique culture of the Sea Islands in the onslaught of tourism and residential growth. They hold workshops to teach people how to protect heirs property and defend themselves against developers. They also organize the annual Penn Center Heritage Days Celebration, which honors Gullah traditions.

Penn Center is a National Historic District Landmark located along both sides of Land's End Road (SC 37), near Chowan Creek. Its 50 acres are home to 19 historic buildings, including Darrah Hall and Brick Church. The York W. Bailey Museum is open Monday through Saturday.

 Inscription. [front text]
One of the first schools for blacks in the South, Penn School, was reorganized as Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School in 1901. As a result of this change, incorporating principals of education found at both Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, Penn became an international model. Its program was removed to the Beaufort County school system in 1948.

[back text]
After Union occupation of the sea islands in 1861, two northerners, Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, came to assist the freed blacks of the area establishing Penn School here in 1862. The earliest known black teacher was Charlotte Forten, who traveled all the way from Massachusetts to help her people.

Inscription. ( Front text )
On the night of August 27, 1893, a huge "tropical cyclone," the largest and most powerful storm to hit S.C. until Hurricane Hugo in 1989, made landfall just E of Savannah, Ga. With gusts as high as 120 mph and a storm surge as 12 ft., the worst of the storm struck the Sea Islands near Beaufort - St. Helena, Hilton Head, Daufuskie, Parris and smaller islands were devastated.
(Continued on other side)

(Reverse text )
The storm killed more than 2,000 and left more than 70,000 destitute in coastal S.C. and Ga. Losses in lives and property were most catastrophic among blacks who were former slaves or their descendants. Clara Barton and the American Red Cross launched a massive relief effort, the first after a hurricane in U.S. history. Donations in 1893-94 fed, clothed, and sheltered thousands.

Inscription. In Honor Of Edith M. Dabbs for her work and leadership in preserving historic documents and photographs of Penn School and for her contributions as author of Face of an Island and Sea Island Diary
and James McBride Dabbs for his dedicated service as trustee and advocate of Penn School from 1960 to 1970

Thirty young Live Oak trees were planted on the Penn grounds in October 1986 by their friend John M. Trask Jr. of Orange Grove Plantation, St. Helena Island