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The Reconstruction Era National Monument

      St. Helena Island, SC—Penn Center, Inc., On behalf of the Penn Center Board of Trustees, would like to express great appreciation to President Barack Obama, for making history today and naming Penn Center and other historic sites of significance in Beaufort County a Reconstruction Era National Monument. 

    This day would not have been possible without the early efforts Congressman James E. Clyburn, Congressman Mark Sanford, National Park Service Retired Director Jonathan Jarvis, National Park Service Staff, and the historians Kate Masur and Greg Downs, who tied all of the nation’s collective histories together to bring much needed attention to the Reconstruction Era. The Penn Center Board of Trustees, Advisory Board and Staff worked tirelessly to make this all a reality.

     Penn Center, founded in 1862 as Penn School, a central component of the Port Royal Experiment, was one of the first schools in the South for formerly enslaved West Africans; this academic school reorganized in 1901 as the Penn Normal, Agricultural and Industrial School and existed for eighty-six years.  After the school was removed to the Beaufort County School District it became Penn Community Services, taking on the mantle of social justice and ushering in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conferences.  The Reconstruction story, our story will be told and shared nationally and internationally and at a time when our nation is honoring the great work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The designation of National Monument is vitally important to Beaufort County, South Carolina and particularly Penn Center.  We are ready to share our mission “to promote and preserve the history and culture of the Sea Islands” with many visitors. Many firsts have taken place at Penn School, Penn Center and within our great Beaufort County.