FMU hosts Juneteenth Celebration

Francis Marion University will host a celebration of Juneteenth this Saturday, June 17 at the Performing Arts Center in downtown Florence. The event, Juneteenth: A Conversation About Our Past, Present and Future, begins at 1:30 p.m. and includes a discussion panel, Q&A session and reception. 

Additionally, the Traveling Civil Rights Museum will be open to the public at the Performing Arts Center from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Friday, June 16 and 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 17. 

The program features special guests Dr. Bobby Donaldson, Congressman Jim Clyburn, and former Senator Maggie Glover.

A native of Augusta, Georgia, Dr. Bobby Donaldson serves as a Professor of History and the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina-Columbia. Professor Donaldson’s teaching and scholarship examine southern history and African American life and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Congressman James E. Clyburn is the Assistant Democratic Leader in the United States House of Representatives and Chairman of the Democratic Faith Working Group. He previously served in the post from 2011 to 2018 and served as Majority Whip from 2007 to 2010 and 2019 to 2022, making him the first African American to serve multiple terms as Majority Whip. He has represented the state’s Sixth Congressional District since 1993.

Maggie Wallace Glover has earned widespread recognition for her achievements while serving as the first African American woman in the South Carolina Senate. During her 17 years in the General Assembly, Senator Glover became an icon in the state as a voice for the poor, the elderly, women and children. She was an outspoken pioneer who was the primary or co-sponsor to well over 50 bills, many of which garnered national attention including the first proposed route for Interstate-I-73, Dr. King’s State Holiday, and the removal of the Confederate flag.