USC unveils desegregation monument
Posted on: April 16, 2024; Updated on: April 16, 2024
By Rebekah Friedman, rebekahb@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-7543
The University of South Carolina will honor Robert Anderson, Henrie Monteith Treadwell and James Solomon Jr. — the first Black students admitted to the university since Reconstruction — with the unveiling of a commemorative monument on Friday (April 19).
The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. at the McKissick Museum grounds on the university’s historic Horseshoe and will include remarks from Treadwell, USC President Michael Amiridis and Board of Trustees Chairman Thad Westbrook.
Commissioned by the Board of Trustees and designed by Jamaican-born sculptor Basil Watson, the 12-foot bronze statue was inspired by a now-iconic photograph of the three students stepping out of the Osborne Administration building after enrolling at the university on Sept. 11, 1963. The statue will complement a desegregation garden on campus, which was dedicated in 2013.
Treadwell, a Columbia native, filed the lawsuit that made the moment possible. She and James Solomon Jr. returned to USC for the monument’s groundbreaking in September. Robert Anderson passed away in 2009.
Attendees are asked to RSVP.