Black to Black

By Barney Blakeney SOS. Okay, I’ve got a bad case of SOS – stuck on stupid. Everywhere I turn there’s something to remind me that our community needs quality leadership. I’ve been stuck on that for a while now. A couple of weeks ago my friend former Charleston County School District media specialist Jason Sakron…

By Barney Blakeney Last week the sisters of Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship, Inc. celebrated their 50th anniversary. Two of my sisters are Swings – Donna Singleton Pinder and Deborah McPherson Crawford. They bleed black and white. My fling with the Swings goes back to my time as a freshman at Barber-Scotia College in Concord,…

By Barney Blakeney I’m not really a supporter of charter schools. I subscribe to the KISS theory – Keep It Simple, Stupid. If we insure all public schools are quality schools that provide the highest quality education possible to students, I don’t really see a need for charter schools. Specialty schools that are accessible to…

By Barney Blakeney I’ve got a lot of respect for Fred Lincoln, president of the Wando-Huger Community Development Corporation. The retired Mount Pleasant fireman was one of the main guys who pulled the troops together to fight the SPA Wando port expansion back in the ‘90s. Since that encounter I’ve learned a little about the…

By Barney Blakeney Set a goal, keep your eyes on the prize and work toward it. That’s what you have to do. I was sittin’ here trying to figure out what the heck I’m gon write about this week. I had an idea in mind, but things didn’t go my way – one thing didn’t…

By Barney Blakeney I haven’t seen the recently revealed video of white College of Charleston students engaged in racist behavior that’s created a stir among Black students and given the local media another hot button story. After writing about racism in Charleston the past 40 years, I’m hardly moved. I’ve lived with racism a lot…

By Barney Blakeney I’m constantly reminded I don’t know everything. It’s something I learned a long time ago and a lesson that sunk in, but it often is reiterated because a lot of stuff goes on I know nothing about. It happened again February 2 when I attended a men’s program at Old Bethel United…

By Barney Blakeney Last week I got a list of 21 questions a group advocating for more input into the development of the International African American Museum feels should be asked of those putting the thing together. They’re some heavy questions – complicated and multi-layered – but they’re questions I think should be answered. For…

By Barney Blakeney For the past few years I’ve had mixed emotions about the response our society is making in the wake of the opioid epidemic. I’d be less than honest if I said I don’t have some consternation about America’s sense of urgency in responding to the consequences of opioid addiction in recent years…

By Barney Blakeney The only way the Charleston County Republican Party Second Annual Black History Banquet could have been any better is if all of Charleston could have been squeezed into The Citadel Holliday Alumni Center on Hagood Avenue in downtown Charleston February 8. That way, our entire community could have witnessed one of the…