This program is funded in part by a grant from South Carolina Humanities and the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

♪ [classical music] ♪ ♪ [classical music] ♪ ♪ [classical music] ♪ <Narrator> In April, 1867, an angry and frustrated Frances Ann Rollin stared down Captain W.T McNelty of the steamboat, The Pilot Boy, who steadfastly denied Ms. Rollin first class passage aboard his vessel.

The comely Ms. Rollin was more than a little chagrined, as the Captain's stance was based solely on one factor.

Though she had the proper fare and certainly looked the part of the aristocrat, Ms. Rollin was "of color."

<Cappy Yarbrough> Ms. Rollin's case against Captain McNelty is one of the earliest post Civil War, civil rights cases.

And what's really interesting about it is there are so many different markers of the Rollin sisters' elite status within this case.

And also, of their tenacity and their interest in furthering equality.

So Frances Rollin boarded a steam ship in Charleston, South Carolina with a first-class ticket, which is something kind of unimaginable for not only the majority of Black South Carolinians, but White South Carolinians to have the money for a first class ticket.

And she's denied access to the first class cabin because she is Black.

<Narrator> The Captain's action in essence defied a military order issued just weeks before.

The Order specifically prohibited any discrimination due to color or caste, in all public conveyances on railroads, highways, streets and navigable waters.

Not content to let the matter slide, Frances Rollin went to court!

<Cappy> This little case is so entrenched in so many Charleston things, but its so forgotten.

The case took place at the Citadel, which is incredibly important in Charleston history.

And McNelty is very swiftly found guilty of discrimination and fined $250, which in today's money is approximately $4600, a pretty hefty fine.

<Narrator> Frances Anne Rollin-Frank, as she was called within her family was the oldest of five daughters born into an elite, aristocratic, free Black family in Charleston, South Carolina: Frances, Charlotte, Katherine, Marie Louise and Florence.

Their father, William Rollin, was descended from French and Black emigres' from Santo Domingo.

Little is known of their mother, Margrette, except that she, too was free, and apparently from the Islands.

Carole Ione Lewis, the great-granddaughter of Frances Rollin has researched and written extensively about her family history, tracing the roots of the family's patriarch, William Rollin.

<Carole Ione Lewis> It has taken a long time to really, really know more and more and more about who he was.

He was part of a free family of colored mulattos, they were called.

They were French and African descent.

He was the grandson of Jean-Baptiste Du Caradeuc who was the Lieutenant Governor in Saint Domingue prior to the revolutions there.

There apparently were two families, a family of color, a White family and both those families came to the United States.

They came to Charleston in the wake of extreme revolutions, and slave uprisings in Saint Domingue, which is now Haiti and Santa Domingo.

At the time it was all one country.

<Narrator> William Rollin was proud of his French heritage.

His wealth and French extraction, afforded him options and opportunities outside the restrictions imposed on most Blacks, even those who were free.

Each year, he traveled north to buy goods for his business.

He had extensive contracts with the City of Charleston, owned slaves and employed numerous Irish laborers.

<Carole> Rollin, he had shipyards, brickyards, a lumber yard.

He owned boats and he transported building materials in between cities, so, he was really quite a merchant.

<Cappy> William Rollin is a wealthy lumber dealer and perhaps one of the biggest influences on their lives was that they were Roman Catholics and they attended a church in downtown Charleston.

It was an integrated church; however, within the church, it was segregated by race.

William Rollin strikes up a patronage system, essentially, where he hires Irish Catholics in his congregation to work in his lumber mill and politicians then come to him to talk about buying the Irish Catholic vote, essentially.

Not, not buying it per se'; but William Rollin cannot vote because he's Black.

And so, he gains influence instead by helping politicians gain the vote of his White employees.

<Narrator> Although he, himself cannot vote, Rollin models behavior that teaches his daughters how to matriculate and have influence in a system without being a part of that system - lessons that will serve them well in the future.

<Cappy> So the Rollin sisters' childhood in Antebellum Charleston was incredibly influential on their activism after the war.

They are born in a free family, which is a very small minority of the Black experience in South Carolina.

But even further than that, they're born in an elite free family.

<Amy McCandless> The Rollins came from the elite Black society of Charleston.

They lived in a mansion in downtown Charleston.

They had privileges that very few other African Americans north or south had.

<Narrator> Rollin is adamant that his daughters receive a quality French education.

They attend a private school run by an "Old French" family and they learned to speak French at an early age.

In 1859 Frances is sent to Philadelphia to further her education.

Arrangements are made for her to board with the family of Morris Brown, son of the famous Charleston Clergyman, While in Philadelphia, Frances enrolls in the "Ladies Course" at the Quaker Institute for Colored Youth, there she receives a prestigious education and matriculates among other young men and women, who are children of the country's Black elite.

She is mentored by teachers Grace Mapps Douglass and Grace Ann Mapps, two cousins, who are very active in the Anti-Slavery movement and, whom Frances later describes as "pioneers of high culture."

As they came of age, the other Rollin sisters are also appropriately educated.

Marie Louise attends a convent school in Philadelphia.

Both Charlotte and Kate are sent to Boston, where they enroll in Dio Lewis' innovative school for Young Ladies.

Katherine Rollin later recalled, It was in Boston that she and her sister drank in those principles of liberty that are now so dear to us.

[explosion] <Narrator> The Civil War brought an abrupt change for Rollin and his family.

ending what Frances later described as that when free people of color were "at the zenith of their prosperity".

<Carole> Where I find them is when the war broke out, so that changed his life completely and when the Northern soldiers came down into Charleston, they took over his land and his farm and he also was shot at that point; but he survived.

He was in the place where he'd been wealthy and now there was little left.

<Narrator> With the family finances decimated by the Civil War, the sisters are forced to remain up North with relatives and friends When they do return home, it is with a spirit of determination and mission.

<Cappy> After the Civil War, they returned to South Carolina and they enthusiastically embrace the new world that Reconstruction and post Civil War has created in South Carolina.

The oldest three sisters began by teaching after the Civil War, which is a really, really important thing for both Black and White women to do after the Civil War.

<Narrator> Frances returns to Charleston in 1865 and is immediately hired by Principal Francis Cardoza to teach at the American Missionary Associations' Freedman's school, the predecessor to the Avery Normal Institute.

Cardoza would later become South Carolina Secretary of State, the first African American in the nation to be elected to statewide office.

A Champion of integrated public education, he was a delegate to the 1868 Constitutional Convention.

Francis Rollin later teaches in Beaufort at the Penn Center, a school sponsored by the American Missionary Association.

She is en route there in 1867 when she has the fabled encounter with the captain of The Pilot Boy.

She is assisted in her suit by Major Martin Delany, the highest ranking African American soldier in the Union Army.

Delany, a physician and leader in the Black Nationalist movement had come to South Carolina following the war after serving in the US Colored 52nd troop.

He began working with the Freedmen's Bureau in Beaufort County.

<Narrator> Delany is so taken by Frances' determination and abilities that upon learning that she aspires to have a literary career, he immediately engages her to write his biography.

Thus armed with hundreds of documents and the promise of remuneration, Frances departs for Boston in the Fall of 1867.

Her book, The Life and Public Service of Major Martin R. Delany, published by Lee and Shepard would in later years be acclaimed the first biography written by an African American woman.

The author is listed as Frank A. Rollin, and generally assumed to be a man, However, Frank is the family's pet name for Frances.

When her payment for the book is delayed, Frances takes up sewing and writing as a means of support.

Her free time, however, is spent immersed in the cultural life the city of Boston affords, attending the latest plays and lectures by such notables as Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Her circle of acquaintances includes mentors, White abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, along with Black intellectuals like William Nell, the historian and future University of South Carolina professor Richard Greener, a sometimes suitor.

In 1867 Kate and Lottie returned to Charleston where they soon established a day school for colored boys and girls.

Letters with Bishop Patrick Lynch of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston show their financial struggles as the sisters who apparently worked without compensation, seek assistance from the Church to buy supplies and keep the school afloat.

<female reading of letter> February 21st 1867.

Reverend and dear sir, we would most respectfully solicit your attention to the bill for one month's rent for house in Line Street, which we have just received and deemed it not improper to send it immediately to you as you might prefer.

Yesterday afternoon, we called at Holmes' bookstore for alphabetical charts but could not obtain a single one.

Though his geographical charts are highly edifying would have taken the set but the cost was $8.

The desks and benches made to order will cost $40.

Therefore, we'll not order them.

With highest consideration, we have the honor to remain with profound respect, Your obedient servants, Charlotte and Kathy Rollin.

<Narrator> The school operates for approximately 18 months.

Without visible means of support and little to no response from the Church, the sisters soon moved to Columbia where they began teaching at the Freedmen's Bureau school in the Capital City.

Their hope was to establish a Rollin school in Columbia and their initial presence in the halls of the State House is attributed to their efforts to attain state funding for the school.

<Valinda Littlefield> For this particular family, they had wealth, they had slaves, they had status within that Charleston area.

They were part of the elite.

And so when you get a Civil War, they lose the material things; but, they don't lose the social capital, the access to people who are moving into power.

<Narrator> Assisted no doubt by fellow Charlestonians now active In the fledgling Reconstruction government, they are soon able to secure employment at the South Carolina State House: Charlotte, as a clerk for Robert Brown Elliott, who served in the House of Representatives from 1868 to 1870, before being elected to the US Congress.

Katherine as a bursar in the State Militia Enrollment Office.

This affords the sisters direct entry and influence into the Republican government.

<Amy> It's not just that they have this knowledge that really is an opportunity that many other members of the community don't have but that they see a responsibility They have - I suppose you could use a sense of noblesse oblige <Valinda> They're able to move into that new platform and very quickly build that wealth back up again.

Not the way it was; but very quickly to maintain that middle class status that they had prior to the Civil War.

<Narrator> Through their positions, the sisters soon find themselves thrust in the midst of social and political change.

♪ [soft classical music] ♪ <Marjorie Spruill> During this period, there were an awful lot of people, including African American men, whose main focus was on the advancement of African Americans generally; but under their leadership, who saw women's suffrage as much less important - if, they saw it as important at all.

<Narrator> One of the most significant events of the year was the 1868 Constitutional Convention.

<Katharine Allen> With the 1868 Constitutional Convention, one of the most progressive members was future representative William J. Whipper.

He is the only one at that constitutional convention that calls for true universal suffrage, not just votes for men, but, votes for women.

And that really speaks to, of course, the person that Whipper was.

But also, the social circle that he surrounded himself with.

And key among those individuals were the Rollin sisters.

<Valinda> If you look at that 1868 Constitutional proceeding, that is where we see a glimpse of the "What If?"

That is where you see intense arguments about not only rights for African Americans, but rights for women, rights to be in control of property so that their scoundrel of husbands would not gamble or sell it without their permission.

And you even have men arguing, you know, if I leave my property to my daughter and she marries some "no gooder", my legacy is gone.

This is a very progressive, I would argue one of the most - I would argue THE most progressive constitution we've had, because it was about democracy.

And it wasn't about democracy for the rich or democracy for one class or another class.

It was democracy for all!

♪ [soft classical music] ♪ <Whipper reenactment> I'm aware that this body will not show themselves so liberal and progressive as to act favorably upon this subject at the present time.

For my part I believe in universal suffrage, yet here's a word inserted in the first line of the report which prevents perhaps one half of the people of this state from voting.

And who, I claim, have the same rights at the ballot box that I possess.

I wish to have the word male stricken out, whether it be done or not, however lightly the subject may be treated, however frivolous you may think of it I tell you here that I know that a time will come when every man and woman in this country will have the right to vote.

<Marjorie> Whipper, when he spoke in favor of women's suffrage to his fellow legislators, did not seem to expect to get very much support, the way he phrased it, and was of putting it on record that they ought to support this and that someday they'd look back and think how absurd it was that women didn't have the right to vote.

<male re-enactment> However, frivolous you may deem it, the time will come when you will have to meet this question.

It will continue to be agitated until it must ultimately triumph sooner or later.

Everything in the shape of tyranny must yield and however derisively we may treat these noble women who are struggling for their sex, we shall yet see them successful in the assertion of their rights.

<Whipper reenactment> The question was taken on the motion of Mr. W. J. Whipper to strike the word male and decided in the negative.

<Narrator> In the Summer of 1868, returning from Boston, Frances Rollin is met at the train station by none other than William J. Whipper.

Inspired by her sisters' reports of life in Columbia, Frances, is enticed to return to South Carolina, lured partially by Whipper's promise of employment.

<Narrator> Within six weeks, Whipper, whose wife had died the previous year, proposes.

And Frances, despite some trepidation and family disapproval, accepts.

The Diary of Frances Rollin, regarded as the first known diary of a southern African American woman, offers us subtle insight.

<female: Frances VO> Tuesday, August 18th to be or not to be non-committal, triumphant but I felt he did not want a no.

I said, "Yes."

He kissed me goodnight.

Wednesday, August 19th.

Feeling the most curious this morning, wondering how W. felt W. came while I was at supper.

He froze me up completely, spent a most curious time, which baffles all of my philosophy.

What was it?

Was the snare of his departed wife present, unseen, unwilling to give up her claim or what?

Both of us were unlike our real selves.

Thursday, August 20th.

Woke early, wondering whether to throw up the sponge or accept a loveless life or not, felt as though W. could not love anyone.

A letter came from him today, which restored me - A real love letter - [wedding bells] <Narrator> On September 17, 1868, Frances Ann Rollin and William J. Whipper are united in marriage.

Almost immediately, the couple is recognized as a powerful political entity.

Frances becomes her husband's most trusted political advisor.

She also edits his newspaper, the Beaufort Tribune, Accompanying Whipper to Columbia while the legislature was in session, Frances spends time with her increasingly politically involved sisters.

In the Spring of 1869, Charlotte Rollin made a speech on the floor of the South Carolina State legislature on behalf of the judiciary committee William Whipper chaired this committee and her speech was in support of suffrage.

This marked the first time a woman addressed the legislature.

<Charlotte re-enactment> As I am entirely unprepared to entertain you with grand displays of eloquence or any exhibition of profound logic I will therefore begin by saying that as a victim of gross semi-barbarous legal inequalities I am grateful for being permitted to offer my protest against class legislation.

I protest against it because it is not only wrong but the parent of many wrongs and the aggravated of all wrongs it deprives woman of her right as a citizen to vote and hold office.

<Katharine> This was something reporters were talking about all over the country.

So, this wasn't just local South Carolina politics.

Suddenly, South Carolina politics had become quite nationalized.

<Narrator> The committee subsequently made a motion to enfranchise women; but this motion too, was denied.

Local newspapers were cavalier in their coverage of this event; even mistakenly identifying Lottie as Louisa, assuming that this "Miss L. Rollin" must have been the younger Rollin sister of that name.

This mistaken identification was repeated by many historians and subsequent writers for over a century.

What was recognized, however, was the speaker's relationship to the Beaufort representative, William J. Whipper, that Ms. L. Rollin was his sister-in-law.

On that score, the reporters were correct.

<Valinda> When you think about this Reconstruction period, Again, it is a door open for African Americans to have access to things they never had access to.

And so Charlotte, being educated, has access to becoming a clerk.

So therefore she has access to the General Assembly.

And so in 1869, when she petitions them to open up voting rights for women, again, that's her door and she uses that to petition.

Charlotte later follows up by leading a rally on the State House grounds.

And, in 1870, she organizes a women's convention.

<Courtney Tollison Hartness> In 1870, they actually hosted a women's rights convention in Columbia.

This is the exact same year that the 15th amendment giving African American men the right to vote was ratified.

Their women's convention received a warm letter of welcome and support from Governor Scott.

And so, that is absolutely a very explicit, open, you know, conversation about woman's suffrage happening in South Carolina.

<Charlotte re-enactment> We ask suffrage not as a favor, not as a privilege, but as a right.

Based on the grounds that we are human beings.

And as such, entitled to all human rights And while we concede, that women's ennobling influence should be confined chiefly to the home and society, we claim that public opinion has had a tendency to limit woman's sphere to too small a circle and until woman has the right of representation, this will last, and other rights will be held by insecure tenure <Valinda> That's a very powerful statement!

And so she's playing with the men who say, your sphere is in the home and that's where it should remain.

This is 1870, remember.

But she is arguing it shouldn't be totally left that shouldn't be the total sphere.

That you leave women in a very precarious situation if that's the only sphere you allow them to operate in.

[giggles] Yes, Ms. Charlotte, like the rest of her sisters, was very powerful!

<Narrator> The sisters were included, along with the Wilders, the Cardozas, Ransiers, and other members of the Black social elite as guests at the executive mansion and other social functions.

They in turn, created their own social capital.

Both Charlotte and Kate invested in properties - including a cottage on Barnwell Street and a substantial building on Richardson Street, which today is Main Street.

They were very visible at most major political and social assemblies.

Charlotte, Katherine, and Marie Louise frequently hosted gatherings in their home, while the much younger Florence looked on.

So influential were the sisters and their gatherings that their home was often, alternately referred to as the Republican Headquarters.

More familiarly, the frequent quasi social/political gatherings they hosted would be termed the "Rollin Salon".

♪ [cheerful classical music] ♪ <Katharine> So the home that was referred to as the "Rollin Salon" was located at the corner of Senate and Sumter Streets.

This is right across the street from the South Carolina State House.

It was purchased by Katherine Rollin and it was actually purchased from a South Carolina senator named George McIntyre.

And what this tells us is that likely Katherine Rollin wasn't able to purchase property from some of the other southern White democrats.

George McIntyre was an ally of the sisters and it's likely that he purchased that property from the former planter class family and then a few weeks later, turned the deed over to Katherine Rollin.

This house was quite expensive.

It was more than $6000.

It was an antebellum mansion.

<Valinda> Who would have been at the salon?

It would have been very diverse.

A majority African American, yes - but, you would have had Northerners who were by then here.

Anybody who had been interested in politics during that particular time period and had some standing would have been at the salon.

Now, the Rollin sisters had their own ideas about who would have been at the salon, as well.

So poor Joe Blow would not have been at the salon unless he or Josephine were serving.

But those in leadership positions, Black or White, would have been members of that group.

<Narrator> In many ways, the Rollin Salon defied the social mores' of the time, as a place where men and women, Blacks and Whites, gathered together both socially and politically, without fear of censure.

Often the top issues of the day would have been debated and decided upon the night before at the "Salon."

<Katharine> What was known as the Rollin Salon, which in the 1870s, late 1860s and 1870s is a place where politics are discussed of course; but more importantly, women's suffrage is discussed for the first time in this reconstruction world.

So, South Carolina and particularly, Columbia, South Carolina - becomes the epicenter of these talks and deliberations over what women's suffrage might look like.

<male VO> A meeting in the interest of woman suffrage, was held at Columbia some time since, at Whippers' residence Miss L. Rollin, a colored woman, was elected temporary chairman and F.J. Moses, Jr. Secretary Miss Horley and Messrs. Ransier and Moses were appointed a committee on permanent organization, and Miss Rollin, Mrs. Harris and T.J. Mackey on by-laws.

Subsequently a meeting for the permanent organization of the "South Carolina Woman Suffrage Association" was held at the same place.

<Katharine> South Carolina's first chapter of the American Woman's Suffrage Association was founded in Columbia on December 20th, 1870.

Charlotte Rollin was the chair of that first meeting and three of her other sisters participated: Frances, Katherine and Louisa, as did members of South Carolina's legislature and some of their wives.

<Marjorie> When they decided to found a South Carolina Woman's Suffrage Association formally, they had the governor, Robert Scott as their honorary president a position he agreed to accept.

His wife was also very supportive.

Daniel Chamberlain, who was at that time the Attorney General of the state, who was also White, like Robert Scott was one of their most enthusiastic supporters, writing letters of support that were later published in the Women's Journal, the Journal of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

<Katharine> At that first meeting, they basically created a charter and wrote letters to send to the national organization, which was founded by Lucy Stone.

And the following year, they received South Carolina's first and only charter of the American Woman's Suffrage Association.

<Valinda> You also have correspondence between Lucy Stone and Charlotte her telling Charlotte, the naysayers will be there, to maintain her steady to keep fighting.

And you also have Ransier promising her This is the Lieutenant Governor, the Black Lieutenant Governor that he will support women's suffrage.

And he has been - but that he will continue to support women's suffrage and as a legislator, that he will recommend that South Carolina add a bill that says and vote for women's suffrage.

And, he does.

He along with Whipper and a handful of others.

<Joan Marie Johnson> They begin the first women's rights organization in the state and they're also involved at the national level.

And I think that's also really important as a through line of South Carolina Suffrage history the moments where South Carolina women make those connections, but she also goes to the American Women's Suffrage Association meeting and is representing South Carolina there.

<Katharine> This is also happening, of course at a time when the South Carolina Legislature is majority African American.

It is the only legislature in the entire country that was, or has ever been, majority African American.

So, South Carolina is experiencing this Renaissance, right.

Things are here that are not happening anywhere else in the country.

National news reporters took note of this.

And that's why in 1871, they decided to pay South Carolina a visit and visit the quite famous Rollin Salon where they could learn more about what these sisters were doing and how they were publicly speaking up for women's suffrage.

<Marjorie> Ones the historians seemed to have the most fun with are two New York reporters, who interviewed them separately for two separate newspapers and were blown over by them by their beauty, their charm, how cultured and knowledgeable they were; that they not only had the Atlantic Monthly sitting out on the table, but appeared to have read it!

You know, a lot of really condescending kinds of things that they said at the same time being super complimentary!

And it was condescending in that they admitted to having all of these stereotypes of African American women that made them so shocked to see the Rollin sisters in all of their splendor!

<Narrator> In the spring of 1871, these two New York newspapers, the New York Sun and The New York Herald, both published lengthy interviews with the sisters.

Unsympathetic to the new Palmetto State government, the papers had depicted the "Radical Republican Regime" as consisting of villainous Whites and ignorant "Sambos."

They were hard put to explain the obviously cultured and well informed Misses Rollin, who were as sophisticated and intellectual as they were beautiful.

<Katharine> [So] During the height of the Rollin Salon in Columbia, South Carolina they're meeting nightly with leaders of the Republican legislature and those included three successive governors, Robert K. Scott, Franklin Moses and D.H. Chamberlain.

And they were very close with the very first governor, Governor Scott - as well as Governor Chamberlain.

Now, all three of these were actually White men.

They were Northerners who came to South Carolina to aid in Reconstruction.

Of course, some Northerners and Southerners referred to them as "carpetbaggers," who were coming to the South to enrich themselves.

And this was really not the case with Governor Scott or Governor Chamberlain.

Just like the Rollin sisters, they were very invested in assuring rights for at least Black men, if not also Black women.

But, Governor Moses was kind of the antithesis of this and his administration was quite corrupt, and of course local and national newspapers seized on that.

Moses was a prime target for them to say: Look at what's happening in South Carolina politics.

These Republicans are corrupt.

The Rollin sisters made sure to position themselves as the antithesis of those specific actions of Franklin Moses and we're really seeing this happen in the New York Herald and New York Sun articles that appear in 1871.

They make sure to tell those reporters that while they're definitely supportive of Governor Robert Scott and later Governor Chamberlain.

They are not for the corrupt acts that Franklin Moses is kind of doing behind the scenes.

<Valinda> Now, these are two very racist reporters.

They have their ideas about the South and they certainly have their ideas about people of color...

But they are encouraged to interview the Rollin sisters and they do and they are charmed by the Rollin sisters' intellect, by their house, the material things that are there and so they write articles about these two sisters.

<Narrator> The newspaper reporters seized on the statements by Charlotte and Katherine who did not hold back in sharing their opinions.

The papers published not only the sisters' criticisms, but also suggested that the sisters were engaged in graft.

Other papers around the country repeated the unsavory claims of vote buying in exchange for political influence and circulated rumors of the sisters enriching themselves at state expense, charges meant to sully the sisters' reputations.

<Katharine> There were times that the Rollin sisters had trouble disassociating themselves from Governor Moses.

In addition to attending parties at the governor's mansion here at the Hampton-Preston Mansion, they were also employees of state government, which meant that ultimately Governor Moses signed their paychecks and while again they did not agree with his policies or his backroom dealing, they were still holding legitimate positions in South Carolina government, were proud of those positions, but time and again made sure to separate their political beliefs from those of Governor Moses.

<Narrator> Despite their mixed reviews, both news reports essentially agreed that although "not of the orthodox and Caucasian shade "of skin," the Misses Rollin were a rare, but significant and celebrated force in South Carolina political circles.

The Sun representative concluded: Their manners were refined, their conversation unusually clever and their surroundings marked them as ladies of keen taste and rare discernment.

But for their color they might move in the highest circles of Washington and New York Society.

<Courtney> In 1872, the state legislature actually passed a petition from the American Women's Suffrage Association endorsing women's suffrage; but, they went into recess before anything was really put into action in regards to that.

But, this is very unusual and would probably surprise a lot of South Carolinians thinking back to this Reconstruction government and how supportive they were.

<Katharine> They actually hold meetings in the South Carolina State House to discuss amending that 1868 Constitution to add women's suffrage.

And that ultimately does not turn out well for them.

It eventually evolves into a fist fight.

That kind of spells the end of the women's suffrage movement in South Carolina in the 1870s.

But that doesn't mean the Rollin sisters give up.

They continue that work through the end of the Reconstruction period in 1877, even though they are not able to participate as much in the South Carolina State House halls.

<Valinda> It's important to understand that if things had been allowed to continue to happen that were happening - the good things, not the bad things - that we would have had women's rights a lot sooner; that we would have had issues of equality dealt with a lot sooner.

But, by 1876, those things were snuffed out for decades.

<Marjorie> The Women's Suffrage Movement in the South began much later than it did anywhere else in the country.

And a big part of that was because it was an outgrowth of the anti-slavery movement.

As a result, White Southerners just regarded it with fear and loathing and they were very hostile to it.

The fact that a group of African American women, who were connected to the notorious Reconstruction governments had endorsed women's suffrage, in the eyes of these White Southerners who were thinking about becoming suffragists, that was not something that they wanted to publicize.

On March 13th, 1872, Whipper and other suffrage allies in the State Republican Party made one final attempt to pass universal suffrage.

A joint committee composed of members from both the House and Senate - the committee which included Whipper - put forth an amendment to the state constitution, which would allow that every person, male or female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be entitled to vote.

The Amendment was rejected.

<Courtney> Of course, we know that Reconstruction ended and African American voices were almost completely silenced at the end of Reconstruction.

And so, what we have in the state is voices like the Rollin sisters, politicians in the African American majority legislature in South Carolina who supported women's suffrage - their voices are silenced.

<Valinda> When I teach Reconstruction, I teach my students that it is a violent period.

The longer you are in Reconstruction, the more violent it becomes.

And so, by the mid-1870's, you're basically getting a bulls eye on their back.

because they're seen as radical and they're seen as "we have to get rid of people "like the Rollin sisters" and anybody else who falls into that.

And so you get a purging... of the land shall we say.

And by 1880, you get the Rollin sisters moving out of South Carolina.

<Katharine> Even as South Carolina was moving towards a more equal and just society, that didn't mean it was necessarily safe.

As Francis Rollin noted in a diary entry in 1868, State Senator Benjamin F. Randolph was assassinated while fulfilling his duties as the chair of the Republican State Party.

But the violence really picks up during the 1876 campaign.

This is when former Confederate General Wade Hampton, III becomes the Democratic nominee.

And he is aided by a paramilitary group known as The Red Shirts.

The Red Shirts formed out of local rifle clubs that were very supportive of Democratic politics and returning to that Pre-Reconstruction time period.

During the 1876 election, there are at least two known massacres of Black militia men.

The Ellenton Massacre and the Hamburg Massacre, the latter of which future Governor Benjamin Tillman participated <Narrator> This dovetails with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Rollin sisters are acutely aware of the dangers around them.

Indeed, while proceeding to a dinner party one night in the company of Governor Moses, Whipper and the Governor are in the front carriage when the second carriage, in which Frances and Mrs. Moses are riding, is the object of a volley of shots.

[gunshots and horses neighing] While the perpetrators are not ever apprehended, the Whippers are convinced it is an assassination attempt with the Governor or Whipper, the intended target.

<Katharine> All of this violence culminates in the actual election of 1876 in which Black men with the franchise are afraid to vote.

And also Wade Hampton's men vote with tissue ballots, which literally means, when one ballot is placed in a box and the box is shaken, 10, 15, 20 more ballots emerge.

Wade Hampton ultimately declares a victory in 1876; but there are two governments operating for the next few months.

One is known as the Wallace House and the other is run by Governor Chamberlain for the Republicans.

When United States Reconstruction ends in 1877, all support for the Republican party kind of falls out and Wade Hampton officially takes over.

<Narrator> Sadly, Katherine Rollin, the middle sister, dies of consumption in 1876.

She is buried in the Brotherhood Cemetery in Brunson, South Carolina.

As White Democrats press their claims, more African Americans are forced from office.

In 1876, William Whipper loses his seat in the House of Representatives.

The sisters' father, William Rollin, dies in 1880 And, fearing the increasingly hostile and volatile political climate, Charlotte, Louisa and Florence, then move with their mother to Brooklyn, New York.

Frances is only too aware of the danger signals, especially those aimed at her flamboyant and outspoken husband.

In 1882, the Whippers and their three surviving children move to Washington, DC, where Whipper opens a law office.

The era of the Rollin sisters in South Carolina has ended.

<Narrator> In 1885, Whipper, still chafing to re-enter politics, returns to South Carolina and is re-elected to the House of Representatives.

Fearing for their safety and well-being, Frances and the children remain in D.C.

Her daughter Winifred ultimately becomes a respected teacher.

As an obstetrician, Dr. Ionia Whipper works for the U.S. Children's Bureau, training midwives in sterile delivery techniques.

She later establishes a home for unwed mothers.

Son, Leigh becomes a distinguished actor, appearing on the Broadway stage.

Back in South Carolina, the Legislature elects Whipper to a Circuit judgeship, but Whipper falls victim to the scandals plaguing state government, blocking him from taking his seat on the bench.

Upon his return to Beaufort, William Whipper then serves as a county probate judge, until 1888, when he is ousted by a White Democrat who ran on the so-called "People's Ticket" - a liaison forged by Whipper's former partner and political rival, Robert Smalls, County Black Republicans and White Democrats.

<Narrator> Despite waging a long and contentious battle to assume the office of county judge, Whipper's efforts are ultimately, unsuccessful.

<Courtney> The Women's Suffrage Movement in South Carolina had a resurgence in 1890 and the resurgence was among White women not African American women.

The Rollin sisters had left the state, so in 1890, Virginia Durant Young of Fairfax, in Allendale County, came to visit her good friend Adelaide Viola Neblett in Greenville, and they decided to host an impromptu Women's Rights Convention in Neblett's house in downtown Greenville.

So they invited about 15 people who they knew would be empathetic, sympathetic, supportive of the cause and together they established the South Carolina Equal Rights Association.

<narrator> Meanwhile, Virginia Durant Young soon aligns the South Carolina Equal Rights Association with the National American Women's Suffrage Association, or NAWSA.

Young is named a vice president for South Carolina.

<Courtney> The National American Women's Suffrage Association, which is the leading body of suffragists in this country at that time, realized that they needed to develop a southern campaign and a southern strategy because they knew it would be extremely difficult to pass the 19th amendment without support from at least some of the southern states.

Their southern strategy involved finding a way to try to ensure the continuation of White supremacy by increasing the number of White votes.

And they were going to increase the number of White votes by ensuring that only White women were allowed to exercise the right to vote.

<Jennifer Gunter> 1870, there's this movement towards suffrage for all, right?

But then White supremacy rears its ugly head and people in the movement such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony make the decision that they need to just push for suffrage for White women and not necessarily for all women, because they think it will sell better in the South and improve their outcome.

<Courtney> In 1895, NAWSA for the very first time held a convention outside of Washington, D.C.

They held the convention in Atlanta.

At the convention, Senator Robert Hemphill of South Carolina spoke.

He was considered a suffrage champion in the state of South Carolina.

He addressed the convention and gave this resounding speech in favor of women's suffrage.

Immediately, at the end of his speech, Susan B. Anthony turned to the band and requested that they play "Dixie".

[laughs] Yeah, a lot of people don't know this about Susan B, Anthony.

<Valinda> When you think about that 1895 activity of suffragists, you are talking about a time period that cements...the separation of Black women and White women.

<Narrator> At the Constitutional Convention of 1895, the Woman's Suffrage Amendment, supported by Senator Hemphill and encouraged by Virginia Durant Young was entertained.

It was resoundingly defeated, along with most rights pertaining to African Americans.

A delegate to the Convention a dejected, but defiant William Whipper makes one last, but unsuccessful appeal before the Body.

<Whipper re-enactment> I am not here as a supplicant; nor do I put myself and my race in the attitude of a beggar.

I am here as a man and a representative, not representing simply the Negro, but representing the people.

The fact that I am a Negro has nothing to do with my status here.

"And just here I will digress to speak "of the flippant way the term [bleeped] has been used "in this convention.

"I am a Negro.

"There are 5 others here that are Negroes.

"We are proud of it.

"And we hope to be able to do something in and out "of this convention that the Negroes will be proud of "and White men, compelled to recognize".

<narrator> For Whipper, it's the end of a lifetime of advocacy.

For Virginia Durant Young, though she continues her efforts, a recognition that the death knell is sounding.

<Narrator> As for the Rollin sisters, in New York, Charlotte becomes a noted school principal.

Not much is known of Louisa's life there, but Florence, becomes a distinguished music teacher.

None of the three return to the Palmetto State; but all live to see the 19th Amendment ratified.

Frances Rollin Whipper, weakened by illness, returns to her South Carolina home in the mid-1890s fully aware of the changes that have been wrought.

When asked to submit a statement in recognition of her efforts, she expresses her disappointment in not reaching the mark she had set for herself.

Yet, she describes the period between 1868 to 1876 as happy and prosperous years, "We were for a while, a part of that wonderful drama."

Frances Rollin died in Beaufort in 1901.

William Whipper died in 1907.

Both are believed to be buried in the church graveyard at Wesley United Methodist Church in Beaufort.

Their graves are unmarked.

♪ [classical music] ♪ <Valinda> When you're thinking about the Rollin sisters and what they contribute, they do contribute opening that door to the arguments for women's rights.

<Katharine> It's a common misconception that women's suffrage began in South Carolina in the 1890's with the founding of the Equal Suffrage League.

But of course that was not the case.

And what we're seeing is along with this very progressive period of Reconstruction that's happening in the South Carolina State House Chambers, we're also seeing the erasure of the women's suffrage movement, partially or largely because it was led by women of color.