Modjeska Monteith Simkins House
The Modjeska Monteith Simkins House is a historically significant building for the American civil rights movement. The house, which Modjeska Monteith Simkins belonged, located on the Marion Street in 2025 in Columbia, South Carolina. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1994.
Architecture
The house stands on a 50 feet (15 m) wide and 172 feet ( 52.5 m) long plot of land on Marion Street between Elmwood Avenue and Calhoun Street. It is thus approximately one block north of the Columbia Historic District II
In the house there is a modest one and a half floors comprehensive arisen in timber frame construction building with an L - shaped plan and gable roof. The porch on the front is covered by a pent roof. The exterior walls of the house still have the original wooden weather protection boards. The house was initially constructed on brick made of mud brick pillars, the gaps were later filled with Lehnziegeln. The roof is covered with shingles made of asphalt. Inside there are three masonry brick fireplaces with console. Half the floor was used as storage space.
The windows still seem to be original. Are located on the front of the house two lifting window either side of the entrance door. This is enclosed by a fighter windows and side windows. The porch extends beyond the width of the door with the two windows. She has chamfered posts and turned wooden railing balusters. The stages are equipped with a handrail made of cast iron, which have replaced the original wooden railing.
The interior of the house is laid out around the central hall. The kitchen is located on the rear front in the annex. Along the Vorderseitet of the house living room and one bedroom, two other bedrooms are to the rear. Each of the four rooms is equipped with a fireplace. The original floor was replaced by Andrew Simkins with pine planks.
Further changes of the original house are the cultivation of a bathroom in the middle of the 20th century and window bars of iron, which were installed in the 1960s.
At the far end of the property is a single storey building with lift three rooms, built in a similar manner and was probably at the same time as the main house. It is likely that it was used as a guest house for visiting civil rights.
History
According to oral tradition, the house was built before the Civil War, a building around 1900, however, more likely. The Simkins family moved in 1932.
After the death of Modejska Simkins in 1992, the house was vacant until 1995, the Collaborative for Community Trust, based in Columbia collected $ 60,000 to buy the house. The South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office provided a grant and the Municipality of Columbia gave money for the conversion into a museum dedicated to her work and Simkins. Additional support came from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Historic Columbia Foundation and the Columbia Housing Authority.
The house is currently being maintained by the Historic Community Foundation and is not generally accessible to visitors; the visit to visitor groups is possible by arrangement.
Importance
The house was the residence and the private office of Modjeska Simkins, were also in the visiting civil rights activists housed. Simkins ' probably the most important contribution to the civil rights movement was Briggs v. Elliott, the part of the groundbreaking decision Brown v. Board of Education, with the previous decisions of the courts were abolished, the separate public schools allowed after different races. Thurgood Marshall stayed on here than the local hotels African Americans were denied accommodation.