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This portrait of St. Julian Devine
now hangs on the second
floor of the St. Julian Devine
Community Center, just across from the elevator. |
by Susan Millar Williams, Ph. D.
Those who
live and work on the East Side know the name St. Julian Devine—it’s the name of
the community center located in the old city incinerator, on East Bay Street
between Blake and Cooper Streets. But who was the man behind the name.
According
to a plaque at the center, St. Julian Devine was born in Berkeley County on
July 5, 1911 but moved to Charleston as a youngster because his father worked
for the railroad. He was the seventh of eight children born to Frank and Sarah
Wise Devine, and the only one to survive childhood. He attended Burke High
School, married Priscilla Theresa Walton in 1935, and fathered ten children. He
was active in the A.M.E. church and in several fraternal organizations.
But St.
Julian Devine’s most important claim to fame is that he served on the Charleston
City Council from 1968 to 1975 as the first African American elected to that
position since the end of Reconstruction. In order to understand why this was
such an important achievement, you have to know how completely black South
Carolinians were shut out of the political process from the 1890s to the 1960s.
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| St. Julian Devine Community Center |
After the
Civil War, in the 1860s, 1870s, and early 1880s, there were black city
councilmen in Charleston, black policemen and firemen, black judges, and a
black postmaster. But by the time St. Julian Devine came along, African
Americans had been removed from these positions and effectively stripped of the
right to vote. Those who tried to organize any kind of resistance were
targeted, terrorized, and bribed to keep quiet or leave the area. A few black
men and women still managed to vote, but not many. In a 1986 interview, Devine
recalled that on election days, whites patrolled the streets and threatened
blacks they suspected of trying to vote.
St. Julian
Devine’s grandfather, Paul Devine, had been a schoolteacher and a political
activist during Reconstruction, when most black people belonged to the
Republican party—the “party of Lincoln.” “Stand up for your rights,” Paul
Devine told his grandson. “Don’t sell your people for a horse and buggy and an
acre of land.”
And so in
1924, young St. Julian Devine joined the Marcus Garvey movement, an
international effort to promote social, political, and economic freedom for
black people. There were about sixty-five young men in the Charleston chapter,
and one of its goals was to teach African Americans skills that could made them
independent. Devine took this lesson to heart. He started a moving and hauling
business, a grocery store, a filling station, and a furniture store, all of
which catered to black customers. But even owning several successful businesses
did not make St. Julian Devine immune to political pressure. He lost a
lucrative contract hauling books for the Charleston County School District when
he pointed out the enormous difference between the resources provided for black
and white students. He was later arrested for teaching black citizens how to
vote.
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This later portriat of St. Julian Devine
hangs near the entrance to the
community center that
bears his name. |
Devine and
his friends formed clubs to study the political system. Rather than join the
Republican party, which had been more or less crushed in South Carolina, they
decided to push for inclusion in the Democratic party, which then controlled
state politics and refused to allow black people to vote in its primary
elections. Devine joined the Progressive Democrats, the Palmetto Democrats, and
the N.A.A.C.P.—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A
white “downtown lawyer” gave him a book called The Great Game of Politics. Devine studied the rules of the game,
written and unwritten. He made connections with important men, cut deals, and
refused to back down.
St. Julian
Devine encouraged his employees to go to school and gave their children a quarter
for every A on a report card. He urged people to purchase their own homes and
worked to get black students admitted to the local colleges. He pushed the city
to hire black policemen, sanitation workers, and school crossing guards. In
1975 he became the first black man in the city’s history to serve as Mayor Pro-Tem.
In his later years, he served on the board of the Carolina Art Association and
was a founding member of the Palmetto Lowcountry Health Services Agency.
The plaque
at the community center notes that St. Julian Devine also loved to draw and
paint, and that his works are based on subjects and scenes related to the East
Side. I don’t know where those drawings and paintings have ended up, but I hope
that someday they will be exhibited and published.
St. Julian
Devine played an important part in Charleston’s municipal history, and now
there is a way to hear his story told in his own voice. Winthrop College
recently posted an interview conducted by Michael A. Cooke in 1986: https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/oralhistoryprogram/66/.
Much of the information in this post is based on that interview, but
it’s well worth taking the time to listen to the hour-long discussion between a
young man who was a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and an elder
statesman who helped to bring that movement into being.
