You\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a list of historical cities in America that doesn\u2019t include Charleston, South Carolina. You\u2019d also be hard-pressed to find one that does include Greenville.<\/p>\n
Growing up in the former instilled a great appreciation for the past in Sam Hayes \u201920, while living in the latter as a Furman student has inspired him to spread that passion to his new home. Working as an intern over the summer at the Greenville County Historical Society, where his job was to write a report on how the organization can be a better voice for preservation, provided invaluable education and served as a springboard to individual advocacy for a pair of buildings with deep ties to Greenville\u2019s African American community.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom worked in historic preservation in Charleston for close to 30 years, so it was kind of in my blood since I was born basically,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cOne of the things I was looking at in this report was why it seems Greenville doesn\u2019t care about its old buildings. There are lots and lots of old buildings that still need to be saved. People think that all the significant ones have already either been torn down or are being used for something else, but there are so many others.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of them was the McClaren Medical Shelter on Wardlaw Street, which Hayes learned about during his research. Built in the 1940s by Dr. Edward D. McClaren, who was barred from practicing at Greenville General Hospital because of Jim Crow laws<\/a>, it served a nine-bed medical clinic for African American patients.<\/p>\n Developers announced in the spring they planned to move the structure to make room for a 10-story apartment complex on the site, and Hayes spoke out against the proposal during a public Architectural Review Board meeting on July 9.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the only person who spoke in opposition to the move, which was pretty nerve-racking, but I was glad that I held strong on my position,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cAny time you move a building it alters the historic integrity of a building. You really want to keep it on the same property.\u201d<\/p>\n The city ultimately allowed it to be moved about 70 feet away, where it will be transformed into a showpiece and cultural center<\/a> telling the story of Dr. McClaren. Hayes said the most important thing was that it be preserved, but during the process, he was alerted to another landmark where that wasn’t going to happen \u2013 the Asbury House on Asbury Avenue.<\/p>\n A building that once hosted black musicians<\/a>, including the likes of Duke Ellington, Della Reese and Ella Fitzgerald, when they performed in Greenville during segregation, was crumbling and scheduled to be torn down within days. Hayes again went to the city, and this time he won his fight.<\/p>\n \u201cI started calling everyone I could think of, and by five o\u2019clock that day I had confirmation from the city that they would not raze the house as long as certain conditions were met,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cI then set up a walkthrough with the property owner, the city codes inspector and a number of community members to discuss options. Right now, a group of community members is helping the property owner clean up the home to appease the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Saving buildings is not one of the Greenville Historical Society\u2019s primary functions<\/a>, and his experience with the McClaren Shelter and Asbury House showed Hayes the city needs a group that does have that mission. So he\u2019s trying to create one.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been doing a lot of work on my own,\u201d he said. \u201cI have just recently taken steps to start a new non-profit in Greenville called Preservation Greenville, which will focus on the preservation of historic structures.\u201d<\/p>\n Hayes is a history<\/a> and politics and international affairs<\/a> double major who was awarded an A.V. Huff American History Scholarship in October for research with history professors Marian Strobel and Courtney Tollison \u201999 titled \u201cHistoric Properties and Sites: Research, Preservation, and Memorialization.\u201d He spent the summer of 2018 in Washington interning at the DC Preservation League<\/a> and is currently working with Tollison to get plaques put up around Greenville commemorating the 100th anniversary of passage of the 19th<\/sup> Amendment<\/a> to the Constitution.<\/p>\n Lindsey Strand, executive director of the Greenville County Historical Society, says she\u2019s never worked with a more motivated college student.<\/p>\n \u201cIn his report, one of the solutions to the Greenville preservation problem is a brand-new organization might need to be formed, which is exactly what he\u2019s doing \u2026 I think that really pointed Sam on the path he\u2019s on now,\u201d she said. \u201cSam was exceptional. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going get another Sam any time soon, but I\u2019m so thankful for what he did for us and more so for the opportunities he was able to uncover for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Hayes eventually hopes to attend graduate school for preservation and urban planning. But not yet.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to stay in Greenville for at least a couple of years and save buildings. If I can get paid for it, that\u2019s a bonus,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople always ask me what my favorite time period in history is, and I always say I don\u2019t have one. I connect to history through spaces \u2026 I think it\u2019s so valuable to have that in cities, where people may not be actively thinking about the history of Greenville, but they\u2019ll walk into a building and think, ‘Wow, this is incredible.’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a list of historical cities in America that doesn\u2019t include Charleston, South Carolina. You\u2019d also be hard-pressed to find one that does include Greenville. Growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":8539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,42,32,76,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-history","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-top-four-news-3rd-story","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}