January the Sixteenth, the year Twenty twelve; what a Beautiful Day it was at the South Carolina State House, the "atmosphere was electric" and I was honored to participate in the King Day at the Dome celebration, a rally and march sponsored by the South Carolina NAACP. Since 2000, marchers have gathered at The State House to commemorate the life and work of the late Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. This was the first time that I had the opportunity to attend the affair; and as my momma would say, "It was really nice."

Lonnie Randolph, South Carolina NAACP President, served as the master of ceremonies. Also present was Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 17th President and CEO of the venerable 102 year old Civil Rights Organization. Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, was the day’s featured speaker. Mr. Holder became the first Black American to hold this office when he was selected to head the agency in 2009 by our nation’s first Black American Chief Executive, Barack Obama. South Carolina’s passage and the U.S. Justice Department’s subsequent rejection of a controversial voter ID Law last year has sparked a rancorous political fight and put the state on a collision course with Washington and federal powers. Holder, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, is a key player in the conflict and would address the issue at the event.

"King Day at the Dome" became a fixture in the state in 2000 after the climax of the long running battle to remove the Confederate flag from its position on top of the State House Dome. From that fray, the flag came down and the state agreed to recognize Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday, making South Carolina the last state in the nation to do so. The Confederate battle flag, when removed from the capitol dome, was relocated to a place of more visual prominence at the soldiers’ monument directly in front of state house, it was flying high above the crowd; but for me, more disconcerting than the flying flag was the 30 foot tall stature of "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman that towered over the massive crowd, and stands in close proximity to the soldiers monument.

Tillman served as South Carolina Governor from 1890 thru 1894. In 1900, Tillman proudly proclaimed, "we have done our level best to prevent Blacks from voting… we scratched our hands to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them; we stuffed the ballot, we shot them, we are not ashamed of it." Tillman was elected to the United States Senate in 1894, and he became known as "Pitchfork" after a 1896 speech in which he won the voters heart by announcing his determination to go to Washington and plunge a pitchfork into the rump of President Grover Cleveland. In 1901, after President Theodore Roosevelt dined in the White House with Booker T. Washington; Senator Tillman said, "the actions of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the south before they learn their place."

He was largely responsible for calling a state constitutional convention in 1895 that officially overturned the 1868 South Carolina Constitution that was adopted during Reconstruction. The 1895 state constitutional convention disfranchised most South Carolina Blacks and required "Jim Crow" laws. Blacks comprised 71 of the 124 members at the 1868 convention, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 called for the creation of a new government which allowed Black American men the right to vote. It established a balanced tripartite form of government for the first time in South Carolina history. By 1873 the entire nation had plunged into a severe economic depression that heavily influenced the northern public to retreat from Reconstruction.

Wade Hampton II was a leading opponent of Radical Reconstruction policies in the south. He re-entered South Carolina politics in 1876 as the first southern gubernatorial candidate to run on a platform in opposition to Reconstruction. Hampton, a Democrat, ran against Radical Republican incumbent governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain. The 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election is thought to be the bloodiest in the history of the state. Both parties claimed victory. For six months, there were two legislatures in the state, both claiming to be authentic. Eventually, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Hampton was the winner of the election. The election of the Democrat in South Carolina was the first since the end of the Civil War, as well as the national election of Rutherford B. Hayes as President. It signified the end of Reconstruction in the south.

People often ask what was it precisely that the Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished for the world that makes him worthy of this national holiday honoring his name and annually brings thousands to the state capitol. He led a revolution to regain the political rights, and our civil rights that had been guaranteed to all of us by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. Unfortunately for us, our rights had been usurped by acts of terror perpetrated on Black South Carolinians through court sanctioned segregation and intimidation and discrimination; by Ben Tillman like-minded South Carolina politicians through the ages. The goal which was accomplished by eliminating Black Americans from the ballot box continues until today, and served as the motivation behind the Voter ID Law that last year passed through the South Carolina General Assembly, and was signed into law by our Governor, with the underlining intentions to disenfranchise thousands of South Carolina voters; just in time to suppress Black voter participation as the nation goes to the polls in November to reelect President Barack Obama to a second term.

Dr. King’s actions of non-violent protest led to the voting rights acts that passed through congress in the mid-sixties and were signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The presidential election in 2008 saw a record number of Black South Carolinians show up at the polls. After taking a look back at some of the historical evidence as to the great lengths to deny Black folk access to the ballot, and deny us our freedom, this story should serve as inspiration for the over 200,000 Black South Carolinians who are unregistered to be motivated to register and vote in the November presidential election. Think of the ultimate sacrifice that Doctor King paid to afford you with this opportunity. Many political pundits have placed the state in the red column, but I think we still have an excellent opportunity to turn this state blue; if we "Get Fired Up" and be ready to go to the polls in November.