Copyright postandcourier
COLUMBIA — Henrie Monteith Treadwell, USC’s first Black female graduate, returned to Columbia Oct. 24 to discuss her new memoir, “Come Along with Me: An African American Woman’s Journey for Justice.” The conversation was moderated by Beryl Dakers, one of South Carolina’s first on-air African American broadcast journalists, and held at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church, where Treadwell’s educational journey — and her mission for justice — began. “This setting taught me that I was no different from anyone else,” Treadwell said. “I was a full citizen of South Carolina.” Born in Columbia in 1946, Treadwell was raised on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement. Her aunt, Modjeska Monteith Simkins, played a key role in Briggs v. Elliott, a segregation-era lawsuit that become one of several cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education. So when a 16-year-old Treadwell filed a federal lawsuit to desegregate the University of South Carolina in 1962, she didn’t think she was doing anything groundbreaking. “I never thought that there was any problem with my age and working for justice,” she said. “I think that it never occurred to me that what I was doing was something unusual. It was, but it never occurred to me.” In 1963, Treadwell enrolled at the university alongside James Solomon and Robert Anderson, becoming the flagship university’s first Black students since the Reconstruction era. Treadwell graduated from USC in 1965 with a degree in biochemistry, but her passion for social justice turned her toward public health after graduation.
