Following the release of Placing Furman, a study of historical Greenville County, South Carolina, deed covenants and how 1,238 of them excluded Black people from home ownership, at least two media sources ran stories.
The Post and Courier Greenville and South Carolina Public Radio published extensive stories to help readers understand the nuances of the deeds that included racially restrictive covenants (RRCs), effectively barring people of color from owning homes in former mill towns or from being interred at Graceland Cemetery just outside West Greenville.
The deeds were executed by The Furman Investment Co. under the leadership of Alester G. Furman Jr., alumnus, former chairman of the Furman University Board of Trustees and an enduring figure in name and likeness on the Furman University campus.
Conor Hughes of The Post and Courier Greenville and Scott Morgan of South Carolina Public Radio reached out to Furman’s Ken Kolb, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology, and co-director of Placing Furman. Comments from Kaniqua Robinson, co-director of Placing Furman and assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, appear in both articles. Furman’s Kelsey Hample, chair of poverty studies and associate professor in the Department of Economics, was quoted in the SC Public Radio story. Visit Placing Furman to see all faculty and undergraduate contributions to the project.
Written by Tina Underwood, Furman University.