Berkeley County · Marker 08-79
S.C.O.P.E. Freedom House
E side of State Rd. S-8-35, 1/10 mi. N of S.C. Hwy. 45, Pineville
Front inscription
In 1965, this was the Berkeley County headquarters of Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE), a voter registration project of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). SCOPE recruited volunteers from colleges around the U.S. to work with local African American activists in six southern states. Two concrete buildings here served as their “Freedom House.”
Reverse inscription
Berkeley Co. SCOPE was established by Martha Prioleau Simmons, a local civil rights leader whose family owned the Freedom House property. The Pineville-based project included five white Ca. college students and at least two dozen local Black adults and teenagers. Together, they registered approx. 600 new voters over three months and conducted demonstrations against segregation.