SC massacre was forgotten by history. Now it’s being recognized for the first time

An Aiken County heritage district this weekend is commemorating eight people who died in little known 1876 racial massacre during the Reconstruction era.

The North Augusta-based Hamburg-Carrsville African American Heritage District is holding a three-day event to bring awareness to the Hamburg Massacre and South Carolina history. It will feature panels of prominent South Carolina historians, introductions from local council members, prayer ceremonies, bus tours, music, vendors and film screenings.

Organizers hope to make the commemoration an annual event.

The weekend’s happenings were founded by the Hamburg-Carrsville African American Historic District Committee, which is chaired by Wayne O’Bryant, an author and local historian. It is the first time that the area has been fully designated as a heritage district.

Bryant said the event represents almost 20 years of efforts for the massacre to be formally recognized.

“It’s the culmination of a long, lot of work. I think we’ve been at this for about 20 years, building towards having a permanent place where we can correct the record of the old story,” O’Bryant said. “The massacre was such a massive event. It really changed the course of U.S. history, because it was the first event that led to a series that ended Reconstruction.”

The Reconstruction era saw prosperity for many freed slaves, because when the war ended 60% of the state was Black.This led to a number of political positions and power being held by Black people and therefore supporting the freed populations with the right to vote and integrated schools.

After the Civil War, freed African-Americans settled in Hamburg, which became a microcosm of the Reconstruction era, O’Bryant said.

The massacre was seen as an attack on Black people’s African American rights in South Carolina and was the first of a string of attacks before the November election that led to the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow segregation.

Seven Black individuals and one white person died in the massacre.

The massacre started after a Black militia leader, Doc Adams, was wrongly charged with blocking a public road during a July 4th celebration. When Adams showed up for his court hearing days later, he was attacked by a group of white men. Men from both groups then exchanged gunfire at a different location, which led to many being captured and some executed.

The event’s nature was never widely acknowledged because it wasn’t publicized in the South to avoid a reaction from Northern states after the Civil War, O’Bryant said.

“They had to be portrayed as an event that just spontaneously happened. That’s why you’ll see the Northern newspapers call it the Hamburg Massacre and the Southern newspapers called it the Hamburg riots,” O’Bryant said.

“So we wanted to bring that back and honor those people that gave their lives, but also to bring some awareness to how monumental that event was,” O’Bryant said. “Because history was going in one direction. And after that event, it went in a different direction. And we’re really still kind of rebounding from the effects of that.”

Although it is the first time the historic violence will be commemorated, it is not a new discovery for the area. In 2016, the district created a marker dictating what happened in the event and a granite memorial dedicated those murdered in the violence, featuring the names of the victims.

O’Bryant said the main reason he became involved in educating about this history was because when he first heard about it, the only remaining monument to the event was a 20-foot obelisk in North Augusta, dedicated to the sole white man who died in the massacre’s fighting.

Hamburg no longer exists. In 1929, the town was destroyed in a flood. All of the residents and houses were moved to higher ground nearby.

The commemoration, which started Friday, is being held at First Providence Baptist Church in North Augusta. Panelists include Vernon Burton, a history professor at Clemson University, John Hayes, an associate professor at Augusta University and Peter Hughes, a local historian. Prayer on Sunday will be lead by Alexander Pope, Jr.

Admission is free and the program starts at 10 a.m. Saturday.