Editor’s note: In honor of Black History Month, this is the fourth in a series of features highlighting the impact of individuals and organizations in the Upstate’s Black community. For more, visit greenvillejournal.com/black-history-month.

***

When Louvenia “Kitty” Black Perkins was in high school, she developed a love of art that would take her from South Carolina and to Los Angeles, California.

Born in Highland, a historically Black neighborhood near downtown Spartanburg, she grew up during racial segregation in South Carolina. She attended Carver High School, a Black school that later merged with Spartanburg High School, where she was mentored by her art teachers, Raymond Floyd and Mac Arthur Goodwin.

Perkins graduated from Carver High School in 1967, and after visiting her aunt and uncle in Los Angeles, she decided to attend Los Angeles Trade Tech College rather than Allen University in Columbia.

She planned to become a commercial artist but, because of a waiting list at the school in Los Angeles, she switched to a fashion major.

She worked in the L.A. fashion district for around six years before finding a blind ad in the “California Apparel News” for a job with toy maker Mattel.

Working on Barbie

Perkins says she interviewed twice for her first job at Mattel in 1976. Her first attempt to get the job failed because she followed the recruiter’s direction and did not worry about cost when designing an outfit for Barbie, so she reached out to Mattel and got another chance.

“I went back home and started working on another outfit for Barbie,” Perkins said. “I was having so much fun, I decided to do several, so I did six. I took (them) back to Mattel and they ended up putting them in that line for the year.”

At the time Perkins joined the company, Mattel had produced Christie, a Black friend doll as an accessory to Barbie. But the brand had not made a Black Barbie doll. During her first four years on the job, Perkins bided her time until she got an opportunity to design the first Black Barbie, which was released in 1980.

She also worked on various other dolls and play patterns for Mattel, including the Barbie Ice Cream Shoppe playset, which included a real ice cream maker and accessories for kids to play with their dolls.

Perkins retired from Mattel in 2004 as chief designer of fashions and doll concepts for Barbie. While she is no longer full time with the company, she said she still designs special Black dolls when contacted by Mattel.

“Kitty” Black Perkins’ life beyond Mattel

Perkins has designed clothes for singers Gladys Knight and Thelma Houston and does freelance fashion design for individuals in Los Angeles.

She also spends time doing interviews and career days for the Los Angeles and Spartanburg communities.

“I’m hoping this will continue because it’s important that the kids know where they came from and that they can do whatever they set their mind to do,” Perkins said.

Notable dolls designed/worked on by Perkins

• The first Black Barbie (1980)
• Day-to-Night Barbie
• MC Hammer
• Brandy
• Charlie’s Angels

Honors

• Kitty Black Perkins Maker Lab at Spartanburg County Public Libraries
• Two-time Mattel Chairman’s Award recipient

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Today, Lee works at USC Upstate in Spartanburg, teaching leadership to his students. He has a background in middle education and administration, and owns a plant-based cosmetics company that’s growing every day. He’s also a published author, having penned works on intersectional leadership and education practices challenging the age-old saying that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

It sounds disparate. But, like most things in life, it all ties together.

Lee grew up in the small community of Eutawville, just south of Santee. He described an environment that reinforced the idea that it took a village to raise a child. If Lee misbehaved, his teacher would call to explain the situation to his mother and father. Then, she would tell the bus driver because the bus driver was his father’s aunt. As a result, the bus driver would pull up to his house, relaying the message again to Lee’s aunt and uncle. The closeness created a network that extended outside of school and into every facet of life and home.

Walter Lee’s approach to teaching adult students at USC Upstate

The levels of support came to shape his teaching and leadership practice, the CARE framework. CARE stands for:

• Culturally relevant practices
• Affirmations
• Relationships
• Expectations

Although his educational background began in middle education, Lee applies the CARE method to adult students at USC Upstate.

“Nothing changed. The language just gets a little bit more sophisticated,” he said.

The stakes are higher for adults. Lee said it is important to lean into relationship building, giving the example of attending a student’s wresting match or the funeral for a loved one. Since the stakes are higher, it also means being realistic about expectations and affirming their capabilities while being sensitive to the real world challenges.

“‘Sister girl, tell me what’s going on here, because this ain’t you. I know this grade, but this ain’t you. Tell me what’s going on. Because I can’t accept this, not from you,’” he said, giving an example conversation. “Keeping the expectations high. ‘I have belief in you. I do know you can do this. I do know you can have this.’ Constantly affirming the good.”

Lee received his Ph.D. in philosophy of educational leadership from Clemson University in 2018. Obtaining a doctoral degree is a stressful process. While writing his dissertation, he developed a case of adult eczema that caused him to lose sleep. He went to the doctor but was disenchanted with the side effects of the medicines prescribed. So he took to YouTube and began formulating his own topical ointments.

He created combinations of natural butters and oils, and it helped. Over the year, he updated his recipes and was encouraged by friends to sell the formula.

The goal was just to help people with skin care and maybe cover his car payments. The business he created — Dr. Walt’s Co. — has surpassed that in sales and in its intrinsic mission.

“What it’s become now for me is advocacy for people in skin care, but actually advocacy for people in care of self, holistically,” Lee said. He also gets to employ his students but maintains the CARE method with his business.

The company grew in 2023 when he joined Village Launch, Mill Village Ministries’ entrepreneurial guidance arm. At the end of the 10-week cohort, Lee participated in a mandatory pitch competition and won.

“You just have to be open to [opportunities],” Lee said. “One of my affirmations, affirmations that I recite every day is, ‘I look forward to all the good that is already headed my direction, seen and unseen.’”

Walter Lee’s daily affirmations:

• I look forward to all of the good that is coming my way seen or unseen
• All is well with my life
• I am learning to think in ways that support my joy
• I lack nothing; all of my needs are already met
• I choose to start my new life now
• I am aligned not delayed, I honor steady progress
• Out of this, only good will come

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***

Felsie Harris began each meeting of the Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Association with a prayer, asking God to make her neighborhood the best community in Greenville.

Haynie-Sirrine is known as one of the first Black communities in the city, established in the late 19th century. The neighborhood sits south of downtown Greenville, intersected by Church Street and bordered by University Ridge to the north and Augusta Street to the west.

The historic neighborhood has been Harris’s lifelong home since her birth in 1947. Harris grew up on Dixon Avenue with her parents, grandparents and five younger siblings. She attended Sullivan Street Elementary and graduated from Sterling High School in 1965.

Harris lived in Haynie-Sirrine during the neighborhood’s period of decline in the mid-20th century. Rising crime rates and substandard housing negatively impacted the neighborhood. Harris said her family was poor growing up, but she didn’t know it at the time.

“I thought we had everything we needed,” Harris said. “We had food. We had good times, had loving parents.”

After graduating from high school, Harris continued to live in Haynie-Sirrine as a wife and mother of five children. Her family moved a few times over the years but always returned to Haynie-Sirrine. In 1998, Harris was encouraged to join the neighborhood association by her neighbor, Lula Mae Lewis.

“She told me if I was going to move back, I needed to be part of making sure the community grew and progressed, more than just yard cleanups,” Harris said.

Felsie Harris becomes president of Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Association

Harris was elected president of the Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Association at the first meeting she attended. She has held this position for the past 28 years, serving as the leading voice for the community.

She helped improve Haynie-Sirrine by advocating for new affordable housing, creating a community garden and working with the Greenville Police Department to reduce crime. Harris has also strived to protect the neighborhood as development and growth pressures have continued to alter the community.

Harris said that for many years she worked alone as the neighborhood’s sole advocate. She also received pushback from some of her neighbors who were wary of change in Haynie-Sirrine.

“It didn’t stop me, and it helps when you are nice to people,” Harris said. “You know the old saying, ‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’”

Harris believes there’s still more work to do for Haynie-Sirrine, such as building more affordable housing in the neighborhood. In recent years, Harris was involved in creating a new master plan for Haynie-Sirrine, which informed the neighborhood’s recent rezoning. Both the master plan and new zoning offer more protections for the neighborhood and will help guide future development.

In 2023, the city of Greenville honored Harris for her years of service to Haynie-Sirrine by dedicating a street in her name within the neighborhood. Harris said she was overwhelmed to receive the recognition.

“I’m always going to be remembered in Haynie-Sirrine,” Harris said.

Community involvement

Felsie Harris has served as the president of the Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Association since 1998. She also served as the chairman of the Greenville Housing Authority.

Childhood memories

Felsie Harris grew up at 11 Dixon Ave. in the Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood. As a child, she enjoyed playing outside with her siblings and other little girls in her neighborhood.

“We played playhouse in the neighborhood at a big old oak tree across the street from where we lived,” Harris said.

Family tree

Felsie Harris is the oldest child of Artis Hardaman Jr. and Hazel Mae Singleton Hardaman. She has two brothers and three sisters. Harris married her second and current husband, Lark Harris, in 1982. She has five children.

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Editor’s note: In honor of Black History Month, this is the first in a series of features highlighting the impact of individuals and organizations in the Upstate’s Black community. For more, visit greenvillejournal.com/black-history-month.

When Charles Brewer was growing up in the Judson Mill community, a future in the textile industry seemed a foregone conclusion.

His parents and everyone he knew worked hard, and he started hustling at odd jobs from an early age to earn his way and help the family make ends meet.

But learning the value of hard work and the virtue of a job well done are only part of the story of what propelled Brewer to the position of general manager and chief operating officer at Greenville’s historic Poinsett Club, where he has worked for 44 years.

The first Black person to hold the position, Brewer credits much of his success to mentors throughout his life who saw his potential and pushed him to reach beyond the familiar and try his hand at new challenges.

Motivating mentors

Brewer traces the origins of his path to his current position back to a crucial connection he made in elementary school.

Reflecting on his early education at Hollis Elementary — now Hollis Academy — Brewer said he found reading and spelling difficult and became the “class clown” as a way to compensate for that frustration.

As a result, he was often deemed disruptive. He and his desk were many times relegated to the hallway outside the classroom and on one such occasion school counselor Steve McMeekin stopped to speak with him.

McMeekin took an interest in Brewer and over the ensuing decades became one of Brewer’s chief champions and encouragers. Brewer was one of about five or six boys the counselor nurtured and helped see a broader world full of possibilities.

But McMeekin was building on bedrock already established by Brewer’s parents and other family members who taught him lessons about the value of hard work and self-sufficiency.

Brewer’s grandmother also taught him a principle that has guided him throughout his life: God’s greatest gift to a person is the ability to serve others.

“I’ve always taken that to heart,” he said. “My gift that God gave me is to serve people and to take care of people.”

Brewer began living that attitude at about the same time he discovered what would become a lifelong love of cooking when, as an 8-year-old, he began cooking to feed his siblings. At the same time, he also followed his parents’ example of working hard to help make ends meet and took odd jobs wherever he could find them.

That work ethic eventually led Brewer to take a pot-washing job at the Poinsett Club in 1981 when he turned 16. And with McMeekin’s encouragement to be the best at whatever job he found himself doing, Brewer began a journey wherein he did nearly every job at the Poinsett Club.

Steady climb

Over his years at the club, Brewer encountered other mentors who encouraged him to take on new challenges and use his gifts in new ways. From former General Manager John Dejong, whose hands-on leadership style set an example of how to build teamwork, to former General Manager Warren Arseneaux, who tapped Brewer to become a dining room manager, he learned the roles that have defined the club’s reputation for excellence.

That reputation is built on the caliber of the staff and their commitment to one another and the members, according to Tom Bates, past president of the Poinsett Club board of governors.

“No one exemplifies that more than Charles because Charles has done every job that has been here,” Bates said.

Like many of the club staff, maître d’ Lillie Washington’s tenure spans decades. She said Brewer’s passion for taking care of the members exemplifies the level of service the staff seeks to provide and helps explain why the Poinsett Club is such a cherished Greenville institution.

According to member relations director Stacia Smith, for the 26 years she’s been a staff member, Brewer has “been the face of the Poinsett Club.”

“He’s been the person who has reached out, touched members, formed relationships,” she said. “He’s got a real servant’s heart.”

For those reasons and many others, Bates said Brewer was the logical choice to become general manager.

“He deserved it and he earned it,” Bates said.

The ‘Talented Mr. Brewer’

While cooking is one of Charles Brewer’s lifelong passions, he has many other talents and passions, including:

• Education — is a serving board member and played an important role in the development of Legacy Early College with founder and Poinsett Club member William Brown.
• Wine — has developed a passion for wines and sharing that passion with club members. He will lead a group on a wine tour of Italy later this year.
• Ice sculpture — learned the techniques and competed in Fall for Greenville competitions.

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But other names, like the Greenville Black Spinners or Meadowbrook Park, may be less familiar.

The names belong to Greenville’s rich story of Black baseball. Recent efforts by community organizations and local leaders through projects like the city’s Mayberry Park are bringing long-overdue honor and recognition to that history.

Hometown heritage

In the days of segregation, Greenville was home to several Black minor league teams including the Greenville Black Spinners, Greenville Negro Red Socks, St. Anthony Braves and Greenville Negro All-Stars.

Sterling High School, the first Black public school in Greenville, also had a baseball team that started in the 1950s. Many Sterling High Tigers players went on to play in the local minor leagues.

“Baseball was a huge part of the Black community,” said Mike Chibbaro, a local historian and author. “It was the game played by the neighborhood kids. It was very much part of their culture.”

Chibbaro’s book, “Voices from Meadowbrook Park,” chronicles the history of baseball in Greenville.

The Greenville Black Spinners was the most notable minor league team in the area. Manning “Kingfish” Clark, a local businessman, started the team in the 1920s with the help of Mark Durham. The team was born out of a need for recreational activities for Black youth and young adults in Greenville.

Several prominent players came out of the Greenville Black Spinners, including Rico Dawson, who played shortstop for the Sterling High Tigers. While playing for the Black Spinners, Dawson received a contract to play for the Indianapolis Clowns. This opportunity led him to become an extra for “Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings,” a 1976 movie about Black baseball leagues.

Another notable player from Greenville was Thomas Hallums, nicknamed “Big Thomas.” Hallums played for the Sterling High Tigers, South Carolina State University and the Greenville Black Spinners. He was drafted by the New York Mets in 1970 and played four seasons in the minor leagues.

Overdue honors

Clark, Dawson and Hallums were posthumously inducted into the Greenville Baseball Hall of Fame in January. The men are the first Black members inducted, according to Chibbaro, who serves as the Hall of Fame’s steering committee chair.

“They are individuals who made significant contributions to the game of baseball and the community, but because of segregation their accomplishments had long been overlooked and not well known” Chibbaro said. “It was important to finally bring to light and recognize individuals like these who are just as deserving as their white counterparts.”

The Greenville Black Spinners, Sterling High Tigers and other teams played their home games at Meadowbrook Park, located on the south side of what is now Unity Park, after it was built in 1938. The baseball field was constructed on a portion of land once designated for Mayberry Park, the city’s segregated park for Black children.

Read more about the history of Mayberry Park

According to “Voices from Meadowbrook Park,” Black teams could only play at Meadowbrook Park on specific days and couldn’t use the stadium’s locker rooms to change into their uniforms. Black spectators were also required to use separate concession and restroom facilities at the ball field.

In 2020, the city of Greenville constructed Unity Park on the site of the former Mayberry and Meadowbrook parks. To honor the history of the former segregated park, the city is currently building a new Little League baseball field called Mayberry Park. Construction of the park is expected to be completed this summer.

Greenville’s Black Minor League Baseball teams

Greenville Black Spinners: 1922-1957*

St. Anthony’s Braves: 1945-1953*

Greenville Negro Red Socks: 1955-1956*

Greenville Negro All-Stars: Various years

Sterling High Tigers: 1950s-1969*

* Last reference in The Greenville News or Greenville Piedmont

According to Mike Chibbaro’s research

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Lunchbox Learning is sponsored by Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd.

Read more about Mable Owens Clarke’s journey and the history of Soapstone Baptist Church and Soapstone School at this link.

Special section | Black History Month

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Note to readers: This is the third in a series of profiles of community leaders running in the Greenville Journal during Black History Month.

Babette Jones wants to change the world with her spirit brand, Six Nineteen of 1865. Talking to her, it’s easy to believe she could will that ambition into reality.

Six Nineteen is the first Black-woman-owned spirit business in Greenville and the third Black-owned spirit in South Carolina. It launched in October 2024 but the idea began on June 19, 2022, when Jones took a trip with longtime friends, the “731 Group,” to Hilton Head Island.

There, attorney Charles Anderson started mixing a coconut-rum cocktail. The group dubbed it the “Juneteenth” in honor of the holiday.

Jones began to distill the idea for a business.

On Feb. 13, 2023, a member of the 731 Group, Jimmie Flythe Jr., passed away. The loss shook Jones. Flythe echoed her entrepreneurial spirit and desire to propel those around him forward. In April 2023, Jones left her position as major gift officer at Furman University for a position at Greenville Technical College as senior director of development.

“When I was at Furman, a part of my job was to develop relationships with parents and ask them for money for certain programs,” Jones said. “And one program was the Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.”

Specifically, she was interested in the GVL Starts program. Not wanting to mix her personal and business aspirations, Jones admired the program from afar until she left the university.

Jones entered the nine-week program as part of the 2023 cohort. She won the cohort’s pitch competition, which earned her a $5,000 grant and seed money to get her spirit business started. She raised an additional $90,000 and got her enterprise underway.

The brand officially launched on Oct. 19, 2024, with a launch party at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Greenville. Jones is a believer in building genuine, organic connections and attributes that to her success.

The day the product launched, Jones also launched the Six Nineteen Foundation, which benefits philanthropic efforts and education. Launching them together was important because it ties back to her personal mission and purpose.

“To leave a legacy for my children, my grandchildren and generations to come,” she said. “Minorities have not had an opportunity to build generational wealth and it’s amazing that God has me doing this at 60.”

Currently, Six Nineteen is available at 19 Wine and Spirits on Verdae Boulevard. The goal is to distribute nationally within a year, with greater ambitions on the horizon.

“I’m going to live to be 100,” she said with a laugh.

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“Poetry feeds the soul. Poetry is about moments and snapshots of beauty. At the same time, it’s also moments of struggle and overcoming struggle. It’s life-sustaining.” —Glenis Redmond

Glenis Redmond views poetry as a source of nourishment.

Her first taste of the craft was in Aviano, Italy, during a Black history school program in February 1974. Redmond, a fifth grader at the time, became captivated when she heard the poem “1,968 Winters” by Jackie Earley.

“It spoke to me as a fifth grader because I was an avid and voracious reader, but I had never had a Black main character up until that point. I’d never had a mirror as literature,” Redmond said.

A self-proclaimed Air Force brat, Redmond spent most of her childhood moving across the county and overseas. Her family settled in Greenville County after her father retired from the Air Force in 1976. Redmond was enrolled at Woodmont Junior and Senior High School and began writing poetry in her eighth-grade English class.

Poetry came naturally to Redmond, and she has perfected her craft to become an award-winning poet, teaching artist and author of several poetry books. She currently serves as the first poet laureate for the city of Greenville, where she promotes literacy and literature in the local community.

“Poetry feeds the soul,” Redmond said. “Poetry is about moments and snapshots of beauty. At the same time, it’s also moments of struggle and overcoming struggle. It’s life-sustaining.”

Redmond’s impact on the local poetry community spans back to the early 1990s when she started the first poetry slam in downtown Greenville. She previously served as the poet-in-residence at the Peace Center and is the vice president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina.

“I’m what you would call a place-based poet,” Redmond said. “I think because I was placeless at one time means a lot to me now and that’s why Greenville and South Carolina figure into my work heavily.”

The inspiration for Redmond’s free verse poetry lies both in the present and past. As Greenville’s poet laureate, Redmond enjoys sharing the stories of the city and local community, from the lives of Greenlink’s passengers to the city’s beloved parks. Local organizations, nonprofits and schools commission Redmond to write and perform poetry for various events and celebrations.

Poetry also allows Redmond to explore the Upstate’s diverse history. Redmond said it’s up to writers and other artists to bring the history of Greenville and its African American community to the forefront. She is currently working on a new poetry book called “My Life is a Poem” which shares the story of Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, a famous Black one-legged tap dancer from Fountain Inn.

“I’m the chief storyteller of Greenville,” Redmond said. “I’m setting a precedent for telling the stories of Greenville, and it’s not just me telling the stories but gathering people to tell stories.”

Counseling background

Glenis Redmond worked as a counselor before becoming a poet. She received her Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Erskine College and a master’s degree in child and family studies at Texas Tech University. She was also enrolled in a doctorate program for counseling psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“I was book smart and all I knew was books and I was a people person, so I wanted to help the world in some way,” Redmond said. “But academia was not fulfilling my heart. I didn’t feel connected in the way I knew I wanted to be connected.”

Today, Redmond uses her counseling background when leading workshops and helping others tell their stories through poetry.

More about Glenis Redmond

Glenis Redmond is the city of Greenville’s first poet laureate. She received a master’s degree in fine arts in poetry from Warren Wilson College. She previously served as the poet-in-resident for the Peace Center and State Theatre New Jersey. She is a Kennedy Center teaching artist and the vice president of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. She was also an artist-on-roster for the South Carolina Arts Commission.

Redmond has toured the county as a poet and teaching artist over the years and has written several poetry books. She devotes four to five hours a day to writing poetry.

She received the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts and was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She also received the Charlie Award from the Carolina Mountains Literacy Festival and the Peacemaker Award from the Upstate Mediation Center.

Redmond was born on Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter and is an Army veteran reservist. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in her 30s and Stage 3 multiple myeloma in 2019. Redmond is the mother of two twin daughters and the “Gaga” to her three grandchildren. When she isn’t writing, Redmond enjoys gardening, bird watching and dancing.

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***Homeownership is a simple word with a straightforward meaning: the state of owning one’s home.

But for LaTonya Phillips, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County, that simple word represents so much more and speaks to the very thing that defines community and opportunity — empowerment.

Since assuming the job in early January, Phillips has reflected on both the legacy and accomplishments of her predecessor – Monroe Free, who retired at the end of 2024 – and the nature of the mission of Habitat for Humanity in strengthening community.

“We bring people together to build homes and communities,” she said. “I feel that I am doing the work that I was put here to do. I don’t take that lightly.”

A native of Danville, Kentucky, Philips moved to Greenville almost a decade ago when her husband, Carlos, was hired as the president and CEO of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce.

Having lived in cities like Louisville, Kentucky, Birmingham, Alabama, and Alpharetta, Georgia, Phillips said she loves the community and thinks one of Greenville’s strengths is the community’s ability to come together.

She sees that play out daily through Habitat Greenville’s work and that of its collaborative partners working to improve the lives of people and families.

That work is guided by the principle that healthy families make healthy communities. Phillips said one of the surest foundations for a healthy family is a safe place to call home.

That foundation is even more secure when that home is one you own.

“When you have a place that you can call your own and you can lay your head down at night, it opens up so many other windows of opportunity,” Phillips said. “This is work that matters.”

Meeting the challenge

One of the major challenges in doing that work stems from the region’s rapid growth and how that growth has pushed up the cost of owning a home.

To meet that challenge, Phillips and her team have begun a strategic planning process to evaluate what is working and what can be improved. She said this also involves considering strategies and options that might not have been available just a few years ago.

For instance, Phillips said her team is considering whether there are cost-saving opportunities through technologies like 3D printing and modular home construction or land trusts where the home is owned by the resident but not the property on which it sits.

She said the scope of the challenge and the rapid rate of change throughout the community likely mean new and novel approaches will have to be considered.

Phillips said that while the work may seem daunting, the passion and commitment of her team and their community partners combined with the impact their efforts can have for families make it work worth doing.

“When you can help people find a direction, you provide a landscape for what can be,” she said. “And I really think that’s the business we’re in – working with people to provide a landscape to their future.” 

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Bryant Davis

Davis didn’t heed the call until a few years after graduating from Gardner-Webb University in 2010. His first job after college was in sports marketing at Charleston Southern University.

“I was not very keen on the sales part of it, but I loved the relationship building,” Davis said. “I loved the community aspect in terms of partnering with local agencies, churches and schools.”

He decided to take a job as the assistant director of government and community services for Richland County in 2017. The position allowed Davis to make an impact on his hometown of Columbia. It also opened his eyes to the need for narrowing diversity, equity and inclusion gaps within the community.

“I started focusing a lot more on working to address and understand inequalities that existed in our communities,” Davis said. “I started participating in a lot of facilitator training and DEI training that was offered online and in person to understand.”

Davis was hired as the Greenville’s first chief diversity officer in May 2023. He was excited to be part of building the position from the ground up.

Using the knowledge and skills he learned, Davis strives to help every city employee reach their desired potential. He is driven by the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

“There have been people that had taken the time to pour into me and to ensure my success and I want to, in turn, do the same for others,” Davis said.

He offers coaching to help employees become more aware of their values and skills that can be utilized in the workplace. He also helps build strategic partnerships internally and externally with the community.

“Ultimately, if we are moving towards the organization itself internally thriving, then we can ensure that our communities around us can do the same,” Davis said.

Outside of work, Davis raises his three children with his wife, Megan. He currently commutes to Greenville for his job, however, his family plans to officially move to the area in a few months.

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Charles Davis Jr. wears his passion on his sleeve.

Davis owns and operates upscale men’s boutique A Polished Man in downtown Greenville, is principal of Brushy Creek Elementary School in Taylors, and is on the board of the South Carolina Children’s Theatre.

Balancing that many professional roles in life would be a challenge to most people. Yet, to sit and talk to Davis, he handles the balancing act with grace.

As a kid growing up in Clio, a small town in the Pee Dee region, Davis was shy. Fashion was a way to break through his timidness, and he recognized that he felt better when he was well-dressed.

“I felt different whenever I looked my best,” Davis said. “And so for me, it was much bigger than just looking good. It was about the confidence that I felt to be able to show up and be the best version of myself.”

Davis credited his time at Morris College in Sumter with helping him grow out of his shell and into the man he always felt he was. He majored in elementary education, inspired by the art of teaching.

Davis has been in education for 24 years. First as a teacher, then as a guidance counselor, assistant principal and, eventually, principal. He has held that role for 11 years.

He added entrepreneur to his list of accomplishments when he and his wife, Tiffane, opened A Polished Man in 2021. The couple designed the store’s aesthetic to be like an art gallery- neat and pleasant to peruse- in the hopes that it would create an easy, rewarding shopping experience for patrons.

And it shows. It’s a space that encourages clients to find just the right look to ensure they feel confident when they leave.

Davis also created the Confidence Box Initiative in partnership with local schools. The initiative donates accessories from his store to young men to help bolster their self-esteem. Each box also includes a set of seven cards denoting encouraging affirmations.

For Davis, it was a way to give back and help boys grow into the men they will become through fashion, as it did for him years ago.

Meet Charles Davis Jr.

Age: 45

Position: Owner of A Polished Man, principal of Brushy Creek Elementary School

Other organizations: South Carolina Children’s Theatre, First Tee — Upstate South Carolina, The Salvation Army, Boys and Girls Clubs of America

Previous positions: Teacher, school counselor, high school counselor, assistant principal

Question and answer with Charles Davis Jr.

Q: What are some common threads you found between running A Polished Man and being an educator and administrator?

A: As a school principal, it’s important for me to be organized because I am leading a school of about 800 students and 100 staff members. And so I realize — which is a strength for me — I’m very organized. I certainly believe that my organization skills carries over even in being an entrepreneur and running A Polished Man.

Q: What is the legacy you’d like to leave for the next generation?

A: I want to make sure that I’m impacting the lives of people within the realm that I have been assigned to influence. I want students to walk away from my school … impacted by my influence … through my leadership and through making sure that the environment is conducive for them to grow and develop. From a business perspective, I also want to have impacted them. It’s all about impacting, in whatever capacity.

Q: What do you hope a client feels when they leave the store?

A: It’s important for us for all of our clients to feel welcome. We’re very passionate about making sure that we greet all of our clients and customers when they come in. We take the opportunity to listen to what they’re looking for [so that] we provide excellent customer service before they even look at any of the products that we have to offer.

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Natasha Pitts was raised to be part of something bigger than herself.

The ideology was instilled in her at a young age while growing up in Spartanburg. Born to a young, single mother, Pitts was raised with the help of her grandmother, Vera Nesbitt, who showed Pitts the importance of being involved by encouraging her to participate in choir and other activities at their local church.

“As I look back now, those are some of the highlights and the memories that I have with her,” Pitts said. “Those are a lot of the moments that I feel shaped my future without knowing.”

Pitts later discovered her passion for serving the community while working for the city of Spartanburg after graduating from the University of South Carolina Upstate. She spent 17 years working for the city in various roles, overseeing minority business development and, later, equity and inclusion.

Today, Pitts serves as Greenville Chamber of Commerce vice president of diversity and economic inclusion. She helps impact the business community by carrying out the chamber’s diversity and inclusion efforts such as the South Carolina Minority Business Accelerator.

“I go to work every day with the intention of making an impact — regardless of how big or how small,” Pitts said.

Pitts’ work doesn’t end with the Upstate’s business community. She is also involved with multiple organizations and nonprofits, including the Children’s Advocacy Center of Spartanburg, United Negro College Fund, United Way of Greenville County’s African American Leadership and more.

“By being a part of those organizations, I have been able to see firsthand the change that being involved can make,” Pitts said.

Outside of work, Pitts and her husband, James, raised their two children, Asia and Elijah, in Spartanburg. The importance of being involved and helping others was passed down. Pitts said an old African proverb her family likes is: “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together.”

“It just lets us know that they understand that this journey that they’re on; it’s not about what we’re doing today,” Pitts said. “It’s about the impact that we can leave for the generation coming behind us.”

Question and answer

What do you like to do in your free time?

“I love to vacation, and it doesn’t even have to be an extravagant vacation. It can be a weekend at the beach, it can be a spa day.”

What drives you?

“I think it’s impact. It’s never personal. It’s never for my own personal gain or personal recognition.”

What are some of your passions?

“One of my passions would be helping people. Another one of my passions is family and spending time creating memories with family.”

About Natasha Pitts

Name: Natasha Pitts

Age: 42

Current position: Vice president of diversity and economic inclusion for the Greenville Chamber of Commerce

Past experience: Equity and inclusion manager, minority business development coordinator, alarm coordinator and support services admin for the city of Spartanburg

Involvement: Children’s Advocacy Center of Spartanburg, United Negro College Fund’s Masked Ball Planning Committee, United Way of Greenville County’s African American Leadership, CommunityWorks Women Business Center Advisory Board, Founders Federal Credit Union Regional Advisory Board

The post Natasha Pitts strives to be part of something bigger: Emerging leaders for Black History Month appeared first on GREENVILLE JOURNAL.

To honor and educate others about this history, the city and Greenlink have partnered to host a Black History Bus Tour Feb. 10 and 24. The free tours will highlight the history and significance of 11 sites located throughout the city.

The city has been working on developing the tour since summer 2023 after Fran Harden, a Greenlink bus dispatcher, brought forward the idea.

“My father’s stories of growing up here and his participation in the Civil Rights Movement is what inspired me with the idea of a Black History Month Tour. To share with others of what may have been forgotten today,” Harden said.

Each tour will be led by Councilmember Lillian Brock Flemming and Sylvia Palmer, the first African American teacher at Greenville Junior High School. 

“Greenville has a lot of Black history,” said Loren Thomas, the city’s multimedia manager. “It’s an opportunity to hear from people who have had some lived experiences as well as people who have that historical knowledge about the sites that we’re going to pass.”

Some of the featured locations on the tour include:

• Springfield Baptist Church –  Greenville’s oldest historically Black Baptist church founded in 1867
• Unity Park – the former site of Mayberry Park, Greenville’s segregated park for Black children 
• The Phillis Wheatley Community Center – a social and academic center for African American women established in 1919
• The McClaren Medical Shelter – a clinic opened by Dr. Edward McClaren in 1949 to serve Black residents in the Upstate

Both tours are now sold out, according to the city. Thomas said the city plans to continue developing the tour and make it the best it can be. People can submit suggestions on other locations that should be added to the tour in the future by emailing Blackhistory@greenvillesc.gov.

Greenville’s Black History Bus Tour

When: Feb. 10 and 24 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Where: The tour will begin at city hall located at 206 S. Main St.

Cost: Free

More information

Tour stops

Passengers on the city of Greenville’s Black History Bus Tour will see multiple historic sites including:

• Old Greenville County Courthouse and the site of Willie Earle’s trial 
• Working Man’s Benevolent Temple
• Claussen’s Bakery
• Sterling High School
• Beck High School
• The Phillis Wheatley Center
• Springfield Baptist Church
• Woolworth’s lunch counter/Sterling High School statue
• S.H. Kress Five and Dime Store’s lunch counter
• The McClaren Medical Shelter
• Unity Park

The post City of Greenville, Greenlink to host Black History Month bus tours appeared first on GREENVILLE JOURNAL.

Tragedy and adversity can push a person in one of two directions — toward anger and bitterness, or toward empathy and understanding.

For Joseph Fields, vice president of equity for Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County, life confronted him with that choice from an early age.

He believes his life might have followed a different path but for the grace of God and the influence of remarkable women — first and foremost his mother, Florine Jefferson.

Words of wisdom

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1986, Fields was barely 2 years old when his father was murdered. Seeking safety and community on little more than a hunch, his mother moved the family to Greenville when Fields was 5.

The family did find connection and belonging here but also further struggles. Fields said moving to South Carolina was a bit of culture shock, as it was the first time he was surrounded by people who didn’t look like him.

It was also the first time he was called the N-word.

“As a kid, your capacity is so small,” Fields said. “You fight, you get angry … and sometimes the response was shame even though you didn’t have anything to be ashamed about.”

Through it all, his mother taught him the lessons of dignity, self-worth and empathy that shaped his character and gave him the tools needed to transform adversity into compassion for others.

Underlying it all was a bedrock message of faith. Fields said he learned to trust God to use the struggles and traumas of life to forge him into the man he has become. Instead of bitterness, it has produced in him a profound sense of gratitude.

A winding road

Fields has relied on that faith and fortitude throughout his life.

School was a struggle — an ordeal, really — and by the ninth grade he had enough and dropped out.

But the intervention of his high school basketball coach showed him an alternative path. He earned his GED diploma, enrolled in college and joined Kappa Alpha Psi, which is one of the “Divine Nine” historically black fraternities and sororities of the influential National Pan-Hellenic Council.

The path from being a struggling student to becoming Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County’s vice president of equity was winding but guided by empathy and an ability to make the people around him feel seen and heard.

After years as a successful federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security, a training injury brought that career to a close and left Fields looking for a new opportunity to use his skills.

While a career in law enforcement might not seem like the ideal background for someone in charge of building community and increasing options for Black homeownership, Habitat’s leaders saw Fields’ empathy and tenacity as vital assets to the organization’s work.

His life has taught him the profound value of compassion, rootedness and connection and motivates him to help others find those anchors in their own lives.

“You know, once you have that vision, you can’t cut it off and you can’t give it to anybody,” Fields said.

3 questions with Joseph Fields

What keeps you up at night?

“Knowing that the job is not done and having the vision to want to push a culture and a city and a state just to be better.”

Who or what inspires you?

“The beautiful Black women in my family.”

What do you do to decompress/relax?

“Running. I’d run three, four hours straight if you let me … There’ve been times before a run I just felt like the world was right here (on my shoulders). And after the run it was just, ‘This is a beautiful day.’”

About Joseph Fields 

Age: 37

Position: Vice president of equity, Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County

Previous roles: Greenville Connects, community organizer; U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol agent

Other organizations: Kappa Alpha Psi

The post Fields brings empathy learned through adversity to Greenville Habitat: Emerging Leaders appeared first on GREENVILLE JOURNAL.

Originally published February 18, 2021

Allison Ford’s abstract paintings are so vibrant, so layered and so well conceived in their use of white space that you’d think she’d been painting all of her life. But in fact, even though she’s sold hundreds of paintings and has her art hanging in galleries all along the East Coast, the Upstate artist only began painting seriously about five years ago.

It’s not that she wasn’t interested in art all along; it just took her a while to work up her courage.

“I grew up in Charleston, which I consider to be an arts town,” Ford says, “and that was something that was always of interest to me. I always dabbled in different art projects growing up, but I never really sat down to do anything seriously. In college, my roommate was a studio art major, so I would go to the studio with her because I was fascinated by the process of painting. But also because she was so good, I was intimidated by the process.”

Ford dabbled in printmaking and sculpting in college, but eventually shifted gears and earned a law degree from the University of Georgia. But she never forgot her love of art, and after her first child was born she decided to give painting another try. And she found herself once again in talented company.

“I took a class at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts,” Ford says. “Everyone in the class was a well-known artist except for me and this one other lady.”

This time, though, Ford didn’t feel intimidated. And she actually took some inspiration from her newborn child.

“I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose,” she says. “I knew that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I accepted that. And it just felt like a lot of pressure was off at that point; I just started to really adopt a childlike approach to painting. Children, they think their work is good without anyone else having a say about it; that was kind of eye-opening for me. Let’s just keep doing this and let’s not worry about what other people think. Some people are going to like your work, some people are not, and that’s fine.”

That approach paid off, and Ford developed an abstract, tasteful style that got her noticed.

“My first commission was before I even started selling artwork or was even thinking about it,” she says with a laugh. “I do think it was sort of an interesting transition when you realize that people will actually buy your work. You start to sell things, and then you have to get systems in place, and it grows from there.”

 

 

 

 

 

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But it’s not just about expressing herself or selling her work. Ford is a law clerk to a federal judge by day, and she has a young family to care for; painting serves a therapeutic purpose for her.

“Having the freedom to go where I want to creatively is so relaxing to me,” she says. “I’m able to give myself an outlet, so I’m able to give other aspects of my life my better self.”

“This piece is a loose abstract of a farm area,” Ford says. “There’s a house and a barn, and the land around it, a memory of my grandparents and growing up poor on borrowed land, working very hard to build a better a life for their future and their children. That was the inspiration for this piece. One thing I always want to keep in mind is my family history, My parents’ generation and my grandparents’ generation who had to work through unfortunate times in the civil rights era, segregation, working to have a better life, working to get off the farm. And that’s an experience that I want to share with my kids; I want them to know what our history is and where we’re going.”

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