History doesn’t always live in textbooks. It doesn’t only breathe from plaques nailed to brick walls or in black-and-white photos behind museum glass.
Sometimes, history lives in the warm drawl of a story passed around an old oak table. It can linger in the shaded corners of an old courthouse where voices once echoed with protest and purpose. It lives in the sun-drenched conversations of an afternoon that start with a simple, “You know, back thenÂ…”
Oral storytelling is more than a memory. And in communities like Sumter, where generations of Black Southerners lived, fought, marched, served and survived, oral storytelling is an act of reclamation. Be it his story or hers, each one is a glimpse into a time so pivotal, so impactful, that it doesn’t sound like a history lesson, it sounds like a roadmap for the next mile ahead.
And few storytellers carry that torch more vividly than James Lee Felder. Jim, as many know him.
Born on Murphy Street, molded by teachers-turned-trailblazers of Stonehill Elementary School and Lincoln High School, baptized by the fire of Atlanta’s student protests and etched into American history in facets he never thought possible, Felder is not just a witness to history. He is living proof that the past still has voice, and it’s eager to be heard.
]]> ]]>
The little boy from Murphy Street
As a preteen, Felder became the editor of the Stonehill Gazette, a student newspaper produced at the elementary school. His early passion for storytelling and truth seeking followed him to Lincoln, where he helmed The Echo, a publication so respected that it won first place in its category for the Scholastic Press Association 12 years straight.
He credits much of his early foundation of fighting for what’s right despite the era’s societal norms stating otherwise to his journalism teacher, Agnes Wilson. In 1969, Wilson became South Carolina’s first Black Teacher of the Year before going on to preside over the merger of the Palmetto Education Association, which consisted of Black educators, and the State Education Association, consisting of white educators. She was one of those influential figures who didn’t have to raise her voice to be heard or brag about her accomplishments to be respected. Her force lay in her self-respect and persistence to protest the status quo. A trait her students not only admired, but emulated.
“My senior class [Class of 1957], we were rebels,” Felder said with a baritone laugh. “We went to Columbia on a field trip to visit our Statehouse, [and] they wouldn’t let us in. They didn’t let all Black folk in the Statehouse unless you were a janitor or a worker. So, we took a picture standing on the steps to memorialize that moment.”
“Thirteen years later, guess what? I’m sitting in the [government] body over there. It all happened because of my involvement at Lincoln, and we had great mentors who encouraged us.”
Despite many choices to further his education, Felder chose Clark College, now known as Clark Atlanta University, majoring in biology, minoring in chemistry and math with his sights set on being a doctor. By his junior year, Felder became the student government president, leading conversations that brought changes to the college and community. While leading came naturally, in February 1960, he would push his skills to new heights, putting his feet to the pavement and his passion for equality on a new scale.
Making of a movement
The Greensboro sit-in, a key event in the Civil Rights Movement, began on Feb. 1, 1960, at the F.W. Woolworth drugstore in Greensboro, North Carolina. Four students, later known as the Greensboro Four, from North Carolina A&T State University sat at the “whites only” lunch counter and refused to leave after being denied service.
]]> ]]>
Felder found out with many other students during his attendance at a national board meeting of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Washington, D.C. He returned to Atlanta, where he and other students were determined to use their voices to advocate for change. In February 1960, the Atlanta Student Movement was established, comprised of six historical Black colleges – Atlanta University, Clark College, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, Morris Brown College and Spelman College – that followed nonviolent principles as taught by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The students conducted marches, picketing and sit-ins that resulted in the desegregation of public and private restaurants, businesses, schools, housing and hospitals that denied service or access to people of color.
Felder, along with Julian Bond, Lonnie King and Marion Wright Edelman, organized, strategized and recruited heavy hitters for their first march, including Dr. King. The meeting to solidify the march with Dr. King was supposed to last 30 minutes. It stretched for three hours.
On March 15, 1960, 600 students from Atlanta University Center marched downtown in two lines. Dr. King and others marched to restaurants, where they were arrested and jailed. Felder, Bond and others marched to the Georgia Capitol, and despite doors being locked, marched circles around it, Jericho-style, as Felder described.
This was his introduction into the civil rights movement. And it was only the beginning.
The unexpected soldier
Graduating from Clark in 1961, Felder returned home to Sumter’s draft board waiting for him. With Shaw Air Force Base being an anchor for Sumter and the place where he took his first flight as a Boy Scout to Donaldson Air Force Base in Greenville, he had his sights set on flying. And would have, given he passed all necessary testing, evaluations and training one would need. But the draft board had other plans.
Returning to Sumter after his honeymoon in December 1961, he learned he was to enlist in the Army in March 1962. He paid a visit to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond and the late Congressman John J. Riley, expressing while he was ready to fulfill his duty to his country, he just hoped to do so with the Air Force.
“They said, ‘Well, boy, Sumter has a quota to fill. And they need you to fill their quota, so we can’t help you,'” he recalled. “So, I went kicking and screaming to Fort Jackson.”
]]> ]]>
In June 1962, a twist of fate and a razor-thin set of qualifications landed him as one of 10 men to be considered for the United States Honor Guard, out of the thousand who were in his battalion. For two weeks in Washington, Felder and his comrades “did every dirty detail you could imagine” in order to improve their strength and tenacity. After those two weeks, his first sergeant called out eight soldiers from the formation, leaving Felder and another behind; they thought they hadn’t made the cut.
“‘All right, you eight guys, pick up your duffel bags; you’re going to Vietnam,'” the first sergeant announced.
Felder, now years removed from the experience, held a look of awe in eye. He missed fighting in Vietnam War by a hair. He had proven himself worthy of being part of the oldest military unit in the U.S. Army, the 3rd Infantry. Him, the little boy from Murphy Street.
Stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, the Honor Guard handles casket details and ceremonial duties at Arlington National Cemetery, guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, among other duties. In just 18 months, Felder presided over more than 1,100 funerals – including that of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist from Mississippi.
But his most notable mission came in November 1963.
Burying John F. Kennedy
Five months after the assassination of Evers in June 1963, Felder found himself back in Arlington National Cemetery to lay to rest President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Felder only had 47 days left in the Army before being discharged. Sitting in the back of a taxi cab after a job interview with Department of Agriculture, his driver said in a tone Felder remembered as “stoic” and “cold,” “They just shot Kennedy.”
As a military man, he always knew where the president was. Kennedy was in Dallas, and following a call from his first sergeant, Felder would be, too, as he was selected to head his casket team. For four days, the late president’s body never left Felder’s sight. He witnessed the autopsy, the embalming and the changing of the casket. He witnessed Jackie Kennedy’s first look of her husband in his casket as she noted in a somber tone how he looked “so wax-like.” He witnessed her place her wedding ring in his casket, seal it closed and state there would not be an open-casket viewing. He made sure that her wishes were respected.
]]> ]]>
While meant to be a fly on the wall, he witnessed several notable figures pay their respects, including Chief Justice Earl Warren, who signed Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, walking in with Gov. George Wallace from Alabama, who stated on the steps of University of Alabama in January 1963, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Kennedy would deploy the National Guard in June 1963 to ensure students Vivian Malone and James Hood would be enrolled in the university.
“I had a front-row seat to history during that period of time,” he expressed.
He would fulfill his duty, laying the president to rest, presenting the folded American flag to Mrs. Kennedy and returning to his barracks for his first full night’s rest in four days. He didn’t think much of his role, simply that he was fulfilling his duty. But Sumter thought the world of him.
He was selected as grand marshal for Morris College’s parade, shaking hands and giving hugs to classmates and community members who were equally proud to have seen their Jim on TV. To this day, the smiles framing their words of joy at this moment in Sumter’s history are as heartwarming as they are inspiring.
He would return to Washington to bury his company commander, who passed shortly after because of a heart attack brought on by a heart murmur that went undetected for years. Felder thought the stress of Kennedy’s assassination placed a significant strain on his heart. In 10 days, he buried two of the men who framed his military career. After his discharge, he wouldn’t return to Arlington Cemetery for 20 years.
Law and legacy
After the military, Felder earned his law degree from Howard University. He returned to Sumter at the request of Vernon Jordan, an American civil rights attorney. At the time, South Carolina had 50,000 Black registered voters and only eight Black elected officials – none of whom were in the legislature. That would change in 1970.
Felder was drafted again – this time, by community leaders who insisted he run for office in South Carolina House of Representatives. He fretted about money for the campaign, and they told him they would fundraise. He worried about securing white voters, and progressive allies like Dick Riley and Dan Fowler introduced them to likeminded voters in the white communities.
Felder and Leevy Johnson were able to unseat two Democratic incumbents in Columbia. Down in Charleston, Jim Clyburn, another Sumter native and Felder’s longtime running mate for youth offices at Mount Pisgah AME Church and NAACP Youth Council, and Herbert Fielding did the same. When the general election rolled around in November 1970, Felder would become one of the first three Black Americans to serve in the South Carolina Legislature since the Reconstruction era, which lasted 1865-1877.
But there were still battles to be fought.
“Initially, they treated us like furniture; they ignored us. Finally, after about two weeks, you’d have one of the white legislators ease up by your seat – we didn’t have offices at the time, your office was your desk in the chamber – and ask, ‘Can I get you to support this little bill here that I’m about to submit?'” Felder recalled, leaning back in his seat. “That’s when they realized that our vote was the same as their vote.”
While in office, Felder’s most significant legislative victory was co-authoring the state’s move to single-member districts and being appointed to serve on the redistricting committee, a move that opened the door for broader Black representatives. By 1974, 13 Black legislators were elected, including the late Ernest Finney Jr., who went on to become the first Black chief justice of South Carolina.
History that walks and talks
To hear Felder recount memories is to watch a reel of American history unfold from a front-row seat. His recollection is crystal clear, his words careful and compelling and his impact – not only on his community, but also the country – undeniable.
At 86, after his decades spent archiving history in both books and in conversations, he’s not done yet. The Lincoln Museum and Heritage Complex is the next step in how he will honor the past.
But the potential lies in where the past has brought us; it lies in the present. Felder knows firsthand Sumter has always been a hotbed for leadership, going from no Black elected officials to them governing our most impactful public bodies. He impressed upon the next generation of leaders, no matter their age or which side of the tracks they come from, to learn the process. Because “if you are not at the table, you become the menu.”
“Oftentimes, young folk are kind of shy to tread water. They think they might drown. We need to do more pointing out to young folk from whence we’ve come,” he expressed. “We need to do more of that, but first of all, you got to know the history yourself. And if you don’t know the history, you got to know where it is.”
