Harriet Hancock Mother of SC Pride

Mother of SC Pride Harriet Hancock Mother of SC Pride Becci Robbins 1 Harriet Hancock Harriet Hancock and her son, Greg Hancock 2 Mother of SC Pride Thankb you Jim Blanton Brett Bursey Mandy Carter Kyle Criminger Bert Easter Bill Edens Greg Hancock Harriet Hancock Karen Hancock Klocko Dr. Ed Madden Sheila Morris Pat Patterson Victoria Reed Tony Snell Rodriguez Rev. Tom Summers Jennifer Tague 789 Cover photo: Jeff Amberg, Jeff Amberg Photography, Columbia SC Booklet design: Becci Robbins This booklet is a project of the SC Progressive Network Education Fund, made possible by a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission. Printed 2016 3 Harriet Hancock At first glance, she might seem an people living with HIV in a state that was unlikely conscript, but appearances can slow to respond to the pandemic. be deceiving. Under that stylish exterior beats the heart of a true warrior. PALSS was chronically underfunded, the case load overwhelming, and the work Harriet was fighting for the gay commu- emotionally crushing. A driven staff and nity before it coined the acronym LGBT an army of trained volunteers provided arriet Hancock (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). She practical and emotional support to some joined the battle to defend her son Greg, of the state’s most critical patients. They has braved the who came out to her in 1981, but she soldiered on, knowing that if they didn’t meanH trenches of America’s stayed for his friends and their families, do it nobody else would. who would become hers. culture wars for more than In an effort to challenge stigma and 30 years. Back then, there was no map for the road stereotypes, Harriet led organizing efforts she was traveling. She read the books for South Carolina’s first gay Pride Greg recommended, and talked to him march, held on a muggy June morning Armed with her clipboard with an open heart and mind. Suspecting in 1990. Holding her son’s hand, she led that other parents might benefit from her 2,000 marchers down Main Street and and unrelenting optimism, experience, Harriet started a chapter of onto the State House grounds. Columbia she spearheaded South Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians had never seen anything like it. and Gays (PFLAG) in Columbia, the Carolina’s gay rights first in the Southeast. It was a bold move, The night before, Harriet was awakened movement at a time when given the hostile climate. “I was afraid by a phone call from a man who warned someone was going to burn a cross on my that there would be blood in the streets that carried real risk. lawn,” she said. and it would be her fault. The call shook her, but didn’t stop her. It was the beginning of her life as an Hate mail. Lost friends. advocate for some of South Carolina’s Nothing has. Over the years, she has The judgment of neighbors. most vulnerable and vilified citizens. testified in court and in the legislature, has marched and rallied, written letters Late-night calls from In 1985, during the early, dark days of and living wills, and raised money and threatening strangers. the AIDS crisis—when a diagnosis was a awareness. She has called in to talk death sentence—Harriet helped establish shows and called out lawmakers. She has Condemnation from the Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services served countless hours on panels, boards church. (PALSS) to meet the critical needs of and committees. And for all those public 4 Mother of SC Pride PALSS Director Bill Edens meets with Harriet in the Columbia office that was ground zero in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Edens, who worked the first year without pay, died of AIDS in 1993. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor. 5 Harriet Hancock Harriet Hancock acts, there have been untold private ones Although she appreciated the new clothes “one of the kindest, most giving people spent parenting the motherless, tending her mother’s job afforded, Harriet wished in the world. Even though we were not the sick, and mourning the dead. for a mother like her friends had, there wealthy, we shared what we had. I like to when she returned from school. Instead, think I’m like him.” But of all her acts of courage, perhaps she and her sister were charged with the bravest was when she finally decided caring for their younger siblings while Educated in segregated schools but the to leave a violent husband, packing her their parents worked. While she may not daughter of parents who taught her that children into the family station wagon have liked the arrangement, her mother’s she was no better than anyone else, Har- in the middle of the night and going into example surely shaped Harriet’s ideas riet was sensitive to race and the privilege hiding. about women’s ability to make their own that granted—or denied. way in the world. In hindsight, it was the defining decision “I was raised in the South in a time when of her life, the singular act from which Harriet credits her father with teach- you had separate drinking fountains for so much good came. She couldn’t know ing her to recognize the humanity in all whites and blacks, and I always rebelled it then, but when she finally stood up people. “He was a great man,” she said, against that,” she said. “I can remember for herself, she made it when blacks had to sit in the possible for many others back of the bus, and I’d get on to do the same—including and sit in the back with them. her son, who said he doubts The bus driver would put me he would have come out if off. So I started early on, I it meant facing his father’s guess.” wrath. She graduated from Columbia Carolina Girl High School in 1954. Her yearbook, filled exclusively Harriet was born on Sept. with white faces, is signed by 25, 1936, into a middle- friends who call her “sweet” and class family in Columbia, Harriet Hancock “cute” and “swell.” She was a the second of four children. member of the Glee Club and Her father, Adam Daniels, Junior Homemakers of America. was a tire salesman from There is no hint of the woman Timmonsville. Her mother, she would become—except this: Elizabeth McCabe Dan- the quote under her name that iels, worked full-time in a Diane (left) and Harriet (holding her hand) at the church next door to reads “The hand that hath made department store. their grandmother’s house on Huger Street in Columbia. you fair hath made you good.” 6 Mother of SC Pride Harriet Hancock Elizabeth McCabe Daniels worked outside the home in an era when that was not the norm. Pictured here (from left) are her children Diane, Walter, and Harriet. Her youngest, Hylon, was born after this portrait was made. 7 a Harriet Hancock Harriet Hancock’s ancestors were had prominent neighbors, especially the Hampton and Taylor families, he did not South Carolina patriots and pioneers appear in the limelight.” arriet’s family tree is deeply the State. He was a member of the first Legend has it that while cleaning his rooted in the Carolina and second provincial congresses, and musket he accidentally shot and killed his soil. HOn her maternal side, she is a was appointed a justice of the peace for sister. He laid her to rest on a grassy knoll descendant of Col. Thomas Taylor, a the Camden District in 1776. He joined overlooking a pond. That land came to Revolutionary War patriot Col. Thomas Sumter as captain be known as Kelly Cemetery, one of the known as the father of after the fall of Charlestown. oldest burial sites in Richland County and Columbia. He also served in the militia among the largest family cemeteries in during 1779. the state, with more than 400 graves. “The Taylor family’s plantation, ‘The Plains,’ “When Col. Sumter was sur- Many of Harriet’s ancestors are buried was located on much of prised at Fishing Creek, Taylor there, in what Lynn describes as “a small what became the city of was captured and wounded spot of serenity in the midst of a busy Columbia in 1786,” said with a sabre after he surren- city. The famed Southern writer James John Sherrer of Historic dered, but managed to escape Dickey, who lived nearby, was known to stroll through from time to time.” 9 Columbia. “The family’s Col. Thomas Taylor as they were being marched to house once stood at the Camden.” intersection of Barnwell and Richland streets, and is featured in The paternal side of Harriet’s the 1872 bird’s-eye map of Columbia. family also were early settlers Hampton Street formerly was called in the Midlands, tracing back Plain Street to acknowledge the fam- to Thomas Harwell, a Virginia ily’s former holdings.” native who bought a 640-acre parcel on the western side Taylor was a key architect in design- of Gills Creek to establish a ing Columbia, one of the country’s homestead in 1784. first planned cities. His plantation was the site of many gatherings and In “The Heirs of Harwell,” celebrations, noted Edwin L. Green Mark J. Lynn writes, “The in his 1932 book A History of Richland life and background of County. “Thomas Taylor was one of the Thomas Harwell is shrouded most influential men in this section of in mystery. Although Harwell 8 Mother of SC Pride At the tender age of 18 and The days were bright and full of Many ticket-holders didn’t make it to fresh out of school, Harriet promise.

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