Name/Title
Modjeska Monteith Simkins T-ShirtEntry/Object ID
2019.17.1Description
White t-shirt with a picture of of a woman in glasses. The image is outlined by a red box over a caption which reads, "'I AM A STATEMENT' - The STATE Newspaper p.1, December 1, 1982." The caption is followed by a printed signature of Modjeska M. Simkins.Context
Modjeska Monteith Simkins (1899-1992) was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. A graduate of Benedict College in 1921, Monteith taught at Booker T. Washington High School until 1929, when she married Andrew Whitfield Simkins (1881-1965). As married women were not permitted to teach, Simkins instead began working in 1931 as the Director of Negro Work for the South Carolina Tuberculosis Association, becoming South Carolina's only full-time African American public health worker. However, Simkins was fired in 1942, possibly due to her involvement with the NAACP, for which Simkins served as secretary of the state conference of branches (SC NAACP) from 1941 until 1957. She was the only woman during this period to serve as a state-wide officer, and she also served as a lead advisor to the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which met in Columbia for their annual conference in 1946. Simkins later co-founded the Richland County Citizens' Committee, which focused on voter education and direct action protests.
Her family’s leadership in the Victory Savings Bank in Columbia allowed Simkins to provide financial assistance to others in the movement. Simkins’ husband, Andrew, maintained a diversified real estate portfolio in Columbia that catered to African Americans, and Simkins later operated Motel Simbeth, which appeared in the "Negro Traveler's Green Book."
The quote on this shirt, which features an image and signature of Simkins, originated in an interview given by Simkins regarding the public outcry for Black citizens who wanted reflective representative in the state senate. In it, Simkins was quoted as saying, "I don't need a written statement, I am a statement. If I was a weeping person, I would weep for my people...Tyranny abounds in the political process of South Carolina. We have been taxed without representation for all these years...(and) we live in an 'un-Reconstructed' state...I'm not here to beg. I'm here to say that justice is what we will have because we're prepared to fight for justice at the ballot box."Clothing/Dress/Costume Details
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Modjeska Monteith Simkins