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South Carolina
Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for South Carolina.
19Documented
1In custody
18Released
Eras of repression in South Carolina
Where South Carolina’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
2020s 8
1960s 3
1930s 2
2000s 1
1990s 1
1970s 1
Documented cases
19 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Shabazz Akeem Isiah Watson
In Custody
Shabazz Akeem Isiah Watson is a Black man from Saint Stephen (Berkeley County), South Carolina, who received a...
Thomas Gaither
Released
Thomas Walter Gaither, born November 12, 1938 in Great Falls, South Carolina, was a Claflin College graduate a...
Brittany Martin
Released
Brittany Martin is a pregnant mother of four whose brother was murdered by police in 2016. During the George F...
Cleveland Sellers
Released
Cleveland Sellers was the national program director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). O...
S
Sundiata Jawanza
Released
Sundiata Jawanza, born Darvin Allen, has been imprisoned in the South Carolina state prison system since 1995,...
W
William Anderson
Released
William Anderson was a 19-year-old assistant secretary of the Greenville, South Carolina NAACP branch and head...
C
Cliff Cornell
Released
Specialist Cliff Cornell was a U.S. Army soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia, who...
J
Joseph DeLaine
Released
The Rev. Joseph A. DeLaine was the AME minister who organized the Clarendon County, South Carolina school-dese...
T
Tearra NaAsia Guthrie
Released
Tearra NaAsia Guthrie, 23, of Charleston, charged September 8, 2020 with civil disorder for the May 30, 2020 C...
G
George Washington Henson
Released
George Washington Henson was a 65-year-old union textile worker at Pelzer, South Carolina. During the 1935 tex...
K
Kelsey Donnel Jackson
Released
Kelsey Jackson, 28, of Charleston, SC pled guilty to arson of a Charleston Police Department patrol car on May...
A
Abraham Elijah Jenkins
Released
Abraham Elijah Jenkins, 26, of Charleston SC, was charged September 8, 2020 with civil disorder for the May 30...
O
Orlando Shalrocko King
Released
Orlando King, 31, of North Charleston, SC was indicted on charges of violating the Anti-Riot Act on May 30, 20...
W
Will Sanders
Released
Will Sanders was a sixteen-year-old Black youth sentenced to death in South Carolina in 1934, one of the South...
R
Robert Scoggin
Released
Robert Scoggin, the Grand Dragon of the South Carolina realm of the United Klans of America was one of the Ku...
C
Charles Wakefield
Released
Charles Wakefield was a 21-year-old Black man in Greenville, South Carolina, convicted in 1976 of murdering Gr...
S
Shabazz A. Watson
Released
Shabazz A. Watson, 24 (27 at sentencing), pled guilty in U.S. District Court in March 2023 to a single count o...
J
John Williams
Released
John Williams, of Charleston, South Carolina, was convicted of making "seditious utterances" on May 7, 1918. H...
M
Marcello Earle Woods
Released
Marcello Earle Woods, 28, of Columbia SC, was charged September 1, 2020 with destroying a Columbia Police Depa...
Institutions in South Carolina
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in South Carolina that appear in the census’s case files.
FCI EdgefieldEdgefield, South Carolina
3 cases
U.S. District Court, District of South CarolinaCharleston, South Carolina
3 cases
South Carolina Department of CorrectionsColumbia, South Carolina
2 cases
Turbeville Correctional InstitutionTurbeville, South Carolina
1 case
Federal Correctional Institution, WilliamsburgSalters, South Carolina
1 case
Naval Consolidated Brig, CharlestonCharleston, South Carolina
1 case
York County Prison FarmYork, South Carolina
1 case