Women’s History Month is a time when “The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.”
While all these national organizations are a great way for women’s history to be publicized, it is still important for us to observe and celebrate our local heroes, or, “Sheroes.”
With this in mind, The Manning TImes will celebrate a different woman who has made waves and created history in Clarendon County throughout the month of March.
For our first selection, we thought the best idea would be to acknowledge the woman who is in the modern center of Clarendon County history, Meesha L. Witherspoon.
Witherspoon and The Clarendon County Archives, are celebrating women’s history in Clarendon County by posting multiple women who made changes in Clarendon.
Witherspoon sat down for an Editor’s Office Interview to discuss women’s history as it pertains to Clarendon.
Jake McElveen, Editor: Tell me a little bit about your work as it pertains to woman’s history
Meesha L. Witherspoon, Clarendon County Archivist: For Women’s History Month, basically what I thought about is some of the hometown heroes, or “sheroes” as I call them. It is my job to get all these women who have dedicated their lives in service to this county. I just want to make sure I get their stories out as that is my role at this point.
Do you have any names that come to mind?
Several! And see, that is the problem. There are only thirty-one days in March. This is why we celebrate twenty-four seven, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Women like Peggy Paris come to mind immediately. Some of the go-getters like Beulah Roberts that I acknowledged today. Leigh Ann Maynard, Publisher of The Manning Times is going to be one of those women that I acknowledge as well. One of the ones that I have thought of is Marie Land. There are a ton of them and to be honest with you it may be two or three a day because thirty-one days just does not give us enough time to acknowledge all the women here in Clarendon county that have played roles in where we are today and how we are.
Do you think that historically women have been overlooked in Clarendon County?
Yes, you know some of the women who have played huge roles and things here I believe have been overlooked with some of their contributions to Clarendon County history and to US history. Celebrating this month is very important. I just kind of want to lay out all the contributions that they made.
I feel like you see a lot of generic women’s history, and it is very important to individualize that. What inspired you to do that?
Like you just said you see some of that generic history that we all hear about on a daily but there are the women here in Clarendon County making a huge difference. Take what we did during Black History Month. You see tons of posts about people here that we all know, and love. However, others work behind the scenes that also need recognition. Like the lawmakers that we did not know during the reconstruction era. That is kind of what I want to do for woman’s history month. Some of the individuals that we do not talk about or did not know. I feel like it’s necessary in my position to do that since I have access to all of these records from years past.
What are you pulling from? Where is your pool of information for these posts?
Various records that I have and just my own, personal knowledge. Like some of the things that I have gone through with my job and some of the families who have donated information. Like Julia Peterkin who wrote a very famous novel in 1928. So just knowing the things that I have come through I am able to kind of pull from that from our collection.
Globally and internationally why do you think there are so many game-changing women that we have not heard about. Why is it now that we are just learning about them?
They are not in textbooks. You know, historically, we do not talk about strong women. I’m not sure exactly why, but I want to have everybody know the women that made an impact in our community, our nation, and our world just by sharing those inspiring stories about them. So I just want to make sure I get those stories and I put them out accurately.
How important would you say is women’s history month?
Very important. Very important to me. Again, we have to highlight these women because if the history or information does not get out now there are young women who will not know how those that came before them made a difference in history, especially Clarendon County history. I tell these stories to the next generation because they were never told to me..
