CAYCE, S.C. — The City of Cayce is putting forth more effort to highlight African American history.
Cayce is creating space for diversity in its museum and preserving the existing Black history within the city.
Former councilman Skip Jenkins says when he was elected 20 years ago, he made it part of his mission to have his community's stories told. Now, he says he's glad to see the recognition finally happening.
"From the day I got elected on the council, I started pushing for the Seaboard Cemetery down there," Jenkins said. "You shouldn't bury your elders and forget about them... you have to appreciate where you came from."
In the last year, the city has received grants to preserve seven historically Black cemeteries within the city, and its staff has started researching four other spots as well.
Back in October of 2023, the city announced a partnership with the engineering company Stantec who gave a presentation about their plans for using ground-penetrating radar to identify more burial sites.
Mayor Elise Partin says some of this work has already begun.
"Our former council member and Mayor Pro Tem, Skip Jenkins, had asked for my help a long time ago... in working on the Seaboard Cemetery. We were able to take that one a step further and have some support from archeologists to go in and to a little bit of ground penetrating radar so far to start identifying not just where the whole cemetery property is, but actually where grave sites are so we can protect those, we have given all that information to family members so they can decide from there what steps they want to take next and we're here to support that," Partin explained.
As of Thursday, Cayce's Historical Museum opened a permanent exhibit that will continue to display the diverse story of Cayce's history.
Museum Curator, Andy Thomas, says the museum now has a team of people dedicated to finding new pieces of Cayce's Black history to keep adding to exhibits.
"The thing with the permanent exhibit is that it will be changed every so often and we'll shift in new stories and new objects, that's our hope, and the rest of the exhibits in the museum where they had not incorporated any other kind of diversity in those exhibits, we are going to look for diversity to include in those exhibits include African American history," Thomas said.
The new Black History exhibit in the Cayce Historical Museum sits right at the front next to the front desk.