Illustration By Gracie Newton
Columbia, SC, is a place full of historical monuments, markers, buildings and street names that represent those who have shaped the city to be what it is today. Only four percent of the city’s 145 landmarks honor women, according to Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network, or WREN.
For women to make up over 50 percent of the population, the scales of representation of the city’s recognized historical figures are woefully unbalanced. Lady Street is the only street in Downtown Columbia to be named after a woman, Martha Washington (though you can’t tell by looking at it.)
That is part of why Columbia City of Women was created. Former South Carolina First Lady, Rachel Hodges, introduced Rebecca Solnit’s New York City map, reimagining subway stops to be named after the metropolis’s influential women, to Historic Columbia and WREN. The organizations say that it became an easy decision to partner up and start creating a similar map for the city they call home.
“It was kind of a meditation on what would it mean for women and girls to move through a city and be able to see themselves in the city,” said Eme Crawford, WREN Director of Communications and Learning. “A lot of times we don’t know our history and all the great things that our foremothers have done, so part of it is understanding that history – seeing what women in the past have done to give us that motivation and inspiration to keep going.”
At the initiative’s launch party, WREN and Historic Columbia unveiled a map identifying 12 women who have made or are currently making an impact on South Carolina’s capital. Each honoree is to be highlighted during a designated month in the upcoming year, beginning this April. Some names on the map include Dawn Staley, the award-winning USC Women’s basketball coach; Sarah Leverette, the first woman faculty member at the University of South Carolina Law School; and Modjeska Monteith Simkins, a twentieth-century civil rights activist.
Robin Waites, the Executive Director of Historic Columbia, believes that appreciating Columbia’s female leaders will help to build a more inclusive community.
“I think it’s just time to begin to not only celebrate the accomplishments of women but to do that publicly… to ensure that there’s some level of equity in representation, that there’s some way to show the significant accomplishments of women alongside men,” Waites said.
Waites also says that while Columbia City of Women is still in its early stages, they plan on expanding the multi-phase project in the future. WREN and Historic Columbia are not necessarily looking to rename streets or put new monuments in place, but recognize Columbia’s noteworthy women in more creative ways.
Along with the map and the monthly programming dedicated to the current honorees, WREN and Historic Columbia have a full plate of events slated for Columbia City of Women. A series of community conversations at the Richland Library, research roundtable discussions, a walking tour and possibly even an app for historical markers are all in the works.
To diversify their list and add names from various perspectives, the organizations are seeking to hear from the Columbia community about other women who have inspired them.
“There are more than 12 women who built Columbia and made Columbia what it is… so we’re just going to continue in this process of looking for these underrepresented heroes,” Crawford said.
Eventually, Waites would like to see hundreds of women populate their map, comparable to Solnit’s of New York. As she looks even further ahead, Waites aims for this dialogue to become a model for other cities across the state and nation to follow suit. She envisions the history of these impactful women to be taught in K-12 curriculums as well.
One of WREN and Historic Columbia’s overarching goals with Columbia City of Women is to inspire and empower women among all generations. They have adopted the hashtag #SheDid for the initiative, telling women in the community that they can, too.