True Stories of Black South Carolina by Damon L. Fordham

Author:Damon L. Fordham [Fordham, Damon L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, General, History, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9781596294059
Google: lrUgvgAACAAJ
Publisher: History Press
Published: 2008-01-15T16:20:57+00:00

Edmund Jenkins

From Slavery to Lawman

In the last forty years, there have been many residents of the Edmund Jenkins Homes housing project in Mount Pleasant; however, aside from local historians and elderly residents, few have given much thought to the man who lent the project his name—until recently. The town of Mount Pleasant erected a marker bearing his name and story on August 11, 2006. Mr. Edmund Jenkins, who was born around 1845 and died in 1930, played an interesting role in history. During the days of Jim Crow and segregation, Mr. Jenkins served as town marshal, assistant police chief and as a policeman in Mount Pleasant.

In 1901, Mr. Jenkins told his story to an interviewer.

I am the Town Marshal. I was born in McClellanville, Charleston County, South Carolina. I was born a slave to Dr. John Palmer who lived where I was born. I get my name from my stepfather Jimmy Jenkins, whose master was mine. I was never known by any other name.

In 1865, near the end of the Civil War, Mr. Jenkins joined the Union army. He served in Beaufort with the 128th United States Colored Troops until he was thrown from a horse and injured. In the 1901 interview, he explained, “I was in the hospital at Beaufort, South Carolina, for one week. I was discharged at Beaufort after three months after enlistment on account of rupture.” After returning from the army, he married Lucinda Burke of Saint Stephen. They had several children and, after her death in the 1880s, he moved to Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where he married a midwife named Elizabeth “Lizzie” Powell at Friendship AME Church in 1890. It was around this time when he began serving as a policeman.

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