Make Carolina Day a State Holiday
By Dr. Walter Edgar

The Board of Managers and the general membership of the South Carolina Historical Society are concerned with the decreasing emphasis on American and South Carolina history in our state’s schools. While it is not peculiar to our state, it would seem that in a state where history has clearly shaped us as a people, that it is important for rising generations to be aware of who they are and from whence they have come.

The decline in the study of history is nothing short of a scandal. For a state as rich in history as South Carolina, the chagrin and shame should be double that of most of the remaining forty-nine.

One of the things that I have learned in my more than three decades in the college classroom and in working with secondary-school teachers is that young people have a better appreciation for history when they can relate it to their place, that history happened here—not in some far away place. And, there can be no better appreciation than a state holiday that is uniquely South Carolina’s.

Yet, despite the incredibly important things that have occurred in South Carolina, there is not a single state holiday that commemorates anything that is solely ours. We observe events related to someone or something outside of South Carolina. While South Carolina might have been a party to the persons or events observed, somehow there is a public sense that we Carolinians haven’t our own events worthy of a state holiday—when the opposite is clearly true.

On June 28, 1776, South Carolina military forces triumphed over both the Royal Navy and the British Army at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. This signal event was acknowledged by the Continental Congress with a silver medal and the symbols associated with that glorious victory are present in our state seal and on our state flag.

For many years after the battle, South Carolinians observed Palmetto Day on June 28th. It was their special holiday. It was a tribute to the patriots of 1776 who fought and died for American and South Carolina freedom. In New England today, Patriot Day commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord. There is public recognition of the role that Massachusetts played in the founding of our nation. The Battle of Sullivan’s Island is just as significant—if not more so.

Are we in South Carolina less proud of our state’s history than the residents of the Bay State? I could argue otherwise, but the list of public holidays speaks for itself. By not observing this signal victory, we Carolinians permit New Englanders to continue to claim credit for the founding of the nation. This is nothing new. In 1856, on the first anniversary of the founding of our Society, Dr. Frederick Porcher of the College of Charleston said:

“What child has not been taught to believe religiously, that all that is good, all that is noble, all that is venerable in our country is derived from the Puritan who landed on the rock at Plymouth? And whatever we enjoy of civilization, but the force of that great wave which receives its central impetus from that respectable piece of granite?”

Isn’t it time that we reclaimed our rightful place in American history and honor the brave men and women who (in the words of Boston Brahmin George Bancroft) “suffered more, and dared more, and achieved more” than the citizens of any other state?

Each year, in Charleston, York, and a few other places, concerned Carolinians observe “Carolina Day” on June 28th . However, the observation is not statewide—as it once was and as it should be again. Isn’t it time that we as a state reclaimed our rightful place in history? Cannot we let the rest of the country know that there’s more to the American Revolution than the skirmishes in Massachusetts?

We ask that you carefully consider lending your support to our effort to make the observation of June 28th an official state holiday in South Carolina.

Walter Edgar, president of the South Carolina Historical Society, is a history professor at the University of South Carolina. He has written or edited more than a dozen books on the American South and South Carolina. The preceding letter appeared in the Greenville News on June 28, 2006.