By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.

Special to The Courier

For the last three weeks, we have been reviewing the book “Hush Now, Baby,” by Angela Williams from a wealthy, white South Carolina family in Berkeley County. We have reviewed this book because it focuses on an African-American nanny, Eva, in the Williams household during segregation, passage of laws giving civil rights to all and the integration of races in South Carolina and the United States.

Social Justice and Civil Rights

Social justice and civil rights are very recent phenomena, relatively speaking. The first of Eva’s African people were brought and sold at auction about 400 years ago in the United States. That’s when the very first black slaves were kidnapped in Africa. When we move forward to the American Civil War over slavery, and its conclusion on April 9, 1865, we see how recent the fight over social justice has been. Complete segregation, and all the recent federal laws requiring integration, have occurred in Angela Williams and my lifetimes, and also in the lifetimes of most people reading this.

If the Bible Belt has been slow to embrace social justice, civil rights and intermarriage, some of the reasons must be related to how recent these changes are. Attitudes, especially those that are

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