Richland County · Marker 40-142
James M. Hinton House
1222 Heidt St., Columbia
Front inscription
This is the site of the home of James Miles Hinton (1891-1970), businessman, civil rights pioneer, and minister. Hinton moved to Columbia in 1939 and was elected president of the Columbia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that year. He was president of the S.C. State Conference of the NAACP from 1941 through 1958, as it grew from 13 chapters to 80 chapters.
Reverse inscription
Hinton helped overthrow the all-white Democratic primary in S.C. and helped plan strategy for Briggs v. Elliott, the S.C. case of those that led to Brown v. the Board of Education and school desegregation. He was often threatened, was kidnapped from Augusta in 1949, and had shots fired at his house here in 1956. Hinton was later pastor of Second Calvary Baptist Church in Columbia, and died in Augusta in 1970.