Getting Started on Economic Renewal
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| SC state Senator John Matthews has been the guiding force behind the Lower Orangeburg/ Upper Dorchester PRC initiative. Senator Matthews garnered state money for a new industrial park in his district. |
When state Senator John Matthews an African-American and a Bowman native, heard about The Duke Endowment's Program for the Rural Carolinas, he knew his electoral district contained exactly the kind of “left-behind” places the grant program was aiming to help. He approached the Reverend Dr. John Elliott, the Pastor of Shady Grove United Methodist Church, an eligible PRC grant recipient, and they quickly pulled together a team of local leaders and submitted an application.
Dr. John Elliott, a respected black pastor and Bowman native, is minister to three rural United Methodist Churches, including the oldest black church in the area, Shady Grove UMC. He also leads the local Ministerial Alliance, and his Shady Grove United Methodist Church, whose graveyard holds headstones from slavery days, was chosen as the official recipient of The Duke Endowment funds for the LO/UD PRC.
“Dr. Elliott has been a stabilizing influence in the area for a long time,” Matthews said, and he was selected to chair the LO/UD Board.
As a legislator, Matthews had fought for years to pull his district out of poverty. He helped Bowman’s school district merge with a wealthier one and build an attractive new school for kindergarten through 12 th grade. He garnered state money for a new industrial park that bears his name. As a member of a state council on economic competitiveness, he has created a commission to find ways to alleviate the persistent poverty of the Interstate 95 corridor.
“People aren’t learning the skills they need to get decent jobs in today’s economy,” Matthews said. “That has created a stagnant attitude. Even though people want better things, they’re not willing to make the sacrifices up front, or understand that connection ...This state isn’t going anywhere until this corridor is developed.”
Matthews has deep roots in Bowman. He was born here on his parents’ farm. His father was a Methodist pastor as well as a farmer – and he ran a barbershop, a soda shop and one of the two black theaters in the county. His mother was a schoolteacher. She earned far less than the white teachers did, Matthews recalled, and she had to let her students out to work in the fields for six months a year. “She used to teach her classes out of old books stamped ‘For Colored Only,’” he said.
Both his parents had college degrees, and they made sure their six children earned theirs too. In turn, Matthews and his siblings sent all their children to college. But many of his cousins didn’t. His family is a living example of how a university degree creates a better future.
“That’s why I’m so passionate about education,” Matthews said. “In this knowledge-based economy, if you’ve got an education, you’ve got a shot. If not, you’re out of the game.”
The PRC grant application targeted the poorest parts of Orangeburg County and Dorchester County – Lower Orangeburg and Upper Dorchester, or as it came to be known, LO/UD. The area is rural, largely African American, and suffers much higher unemployment than each county as a whole.
Once the LO/UD team won the grant, they formalized a board for the local PRC.
Founding institutional members of the LO/UD team included the two technical colleges that serve the LO/UD area although outside it (Trident Technical College in Charleston and Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg), state social services agencies, adult education departments, job training agencies, county and municipal governments, private employers, nonprofit organizations, county economic development organizations, and others.
“We didn’t know each other,” Matthews said. “It was the first time in these two counties when we brought the service providers to one table, and said ‘What piece of this can you help us with?’”