Black Carolinians Speak: Jannie Harriot

Jannie Harriot is an educator, a community leader, and a titan of cultural preservation. A native of Hartsville, South Carolina, Harriot earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Fayetteville State University. After nearly two decades of teaching in public schools and community colleges in the Carolinas, New York, and New Jersey, she returned to South Carolina in 1990 and served as executive director of the Allendale County First Steps to School Readiness. She soon became instrumental in the 1991 founding of the Butler Heritage Foundation, an organization formed by alumni of Harriot’s alma mater, Butler High School, with the mission of restoring the closed campus for public use as a community center. After they successfully petitioned the Darlington County Board of Education to deed Butler High School to the foundation for preservation, Harriot served as the founding chairperson. In 1993 she was appointed as a charter member of the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission (SCAAHC) by Governor Carroll Campbell. During her twelve-year tenure as chair, the SCAAHC has published the annual “African American Historic Places in South Carolina” guide; a “Teacher’s Guide to African American Historic Places in South Carolina and its “Arts Integration Supplement”; a survey of African American schools in South Carolina entitled “How Did We Get to Now?”; an introductory resource guide for entrepreneurs entitled “The Business of Rural Heritage, Culture and Art”; and a project capturing the experiences of African Americans in South Carolina during the pandemic entitled “Black Carolinians Speak: Portraits of a Pandemic.” Among other awards, Harriot has been honored with “The Order of the Palmetto,” the highest civilian award in the State of South Carolina, and she was inducted into the first class of the Ernest A. Finney Hall of Fame.