Modjeska Simkins House

Front inscription

This house was for sixty years the home of Modjeska Monteith Simkins (1899-1992), social reformer and civil rights activist. A Columbia native, she was educated at Benedict College, then taught high school. Director of Negro Work for the S.C. Anti-tuberculosis Association 1931-1942, Simkins was the first black in S.C. to hold a full-time, statewide, public health position.

Reverse inscription

Simkins was a founder of the S.C. Conference of the National Asssociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As the secretary of the conference 1941-1957, Simkins hosted many meetings and planning sessions here, for cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. In 1997 the house was acquired by the Collaborative for Community Trust; it was transferred to the Historic Columbia Foundation in 2007.