Modjeska Monteith Simkins House
The Modjeska Monteith Simkins House is a historically significant building for the American civil rights movement . The home owned by Modjeska Monteith Simkins is located on 2025 Marion Street in Columbia , South Carolina . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1994 .
architecture
The home sits on 50 foot (15 m) wide and 172 foot (52.5 m) long lot on Marion Street between Elmwood Avenue and Calhoun Street. It's about a block north of Columbia Historic District II .
The house is a modest one-and-a-half storey building made of wood with an L-shaped floor plan and a gable roof . The front porch is covered by a half-roof. The outer walls of the house still have the original wooden weather protection boards. The house was initially built on pillars made of adobe bricks, the spaces in between were later filled with adobe bricks. The roof is by shingles of asphalt covered. Inside there are three of brick masonry fireplaces with console . Half of the upper floor served as a storage room.
The windows still seem to be original. At the front of the house there are two lifting windows on both sides of the entrance door. This is enclosed by a fighter window and side windows. The veranda extends beyond the width of the door with the two windows. It has beveled posts and turned handrail balusters . The steps have a cast iron railing that has replaced the original wooden railing.
The interior of the house is laid out around the central hall. The kitchen is at the rear in an extension. At the front of the house are the living room and one bedroom, and two more bedrooms to the rear. Each of the four rooms is equipped with an open fireplace. The original floor was replaced with pine planks by Andrew Simkins .
Other changes to the original house include the addition of a mid-20th century bathroom and iron window grilles that were added in the 1960s.
At the far end of the property there is a one-story outbuilding with three rooms, which was built in a similar way and was probably built at the same time as the main house. It is likely that it was used as a guest house for visiting civil rights activists.
history
Oral tradition says that the house was built before the American Civil War , but construction around 1900 is more likely. The Simkins family moved in in 1932.
After Modejska Simkins passed away in 1992, the home was vacant until 1995 when the Columbia-based Collaborative for Community Trust raised $ 60,000 to buy the home. The South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office made a grant and the Columbia City Council donated money to convert it into a museum dedicated to Simkins and their work . Additional support came from the National Trust for Historic Preservation , the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Historic Columbia Foundation, and the Columbia Housing Authority.
The house is currently maintained by the Historic Community Foundation and is not open to the general public; visits for groups of visitors are possible by appointment.
meaning
The house was the residence and private office of Modjeska Simkins, which also housed visiting civil rights activists. Simkins' most important contribution to the civil rights movement was Briggs v. Elliott , who was part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education , which overturned previous court decisions that allowed segregation in public schools. Thurgood Marshall was staying here when local hotels refused to accommodate African Americans.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Modjeska Monteith Simkins House . In: We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement . National Park Service. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
- ↑ a b c Modjeska Monteith Simkins House, Richland County (2025 Marion St., Columbia) . In: National Register Properties in South Carolina . South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
- ↑ a b c d e Jill Hanson: Modjeska Monteith Simkins House (pdf; 1.0 MB) In: National Register of Historic Properties Inventory and Nomination Form . National Park Service. October 12, 1993. Retrieved April 1, 2009.
- ^ A b c Jill K. Hanson: The Modjeska Monteith Simkins Home Archived from the original on November 27, 2010. In: Organization of American Historians (Ed.): OAH Magazine of History . 12, No. 1 (case), Bloomington, Indiana, 1997, ISSN 0882-228X , pp. 18-19. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
- ^ A b Modjeska Monteith Simkins House . In: Houses . Historic Columbia Foundation. Archived from the original on November 28, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
Coordinates: 34 ° 0 ′ 50 ″ N , 81 ° 2 ′ 9 ″ W.