Honorary Life Member

A native of Augusta, Georgia, Professor Donaldson received his undergraduate degree in History and African-American Studies from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and his Ph.D. in American History from Emory University where he served on the staff of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project. Previously, he held the Thurgood Marshall Fellowship at Dartmouth College and the Susan Biddle Ford Fellowship at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

A scholar of southern history and African American life and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Dr. Donaldson’s research and writings explore African American intellectual thought, print culture, education and religion. Additionally, he has served as a consultant for museum exhibitions, archival collections, oral history initiatives, documentary films, and historic preservation projects, including the renovation of the Booker T. Washington High School in downtown Columbia. In 2008, the Historic Columbia Foundation awarded Dr. Donaldson and his students the Helen Kohn Hennig Prize for their documentary project on the Ward One community in downtown Columbia. Professor Donaldson received a Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award (2010); the John N. Gardner Inspirational Faculty Award (2015); and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Social Justice Award (2016). From 2010-2016, he served as the Faculty Principal of Preston Residential College. After nine years of service, he was named a trustee emeritus of Wesleyan University in 2015. Dr. Donaldson holds the James E. and Emily E. Clyburn Chair of Public Service and Civic Engagement.

Currently, Professor Donaldson leads the Center for Civil Rights History and Research, housed in the Hollings Special Collections Library. He also serves as the lead scholar for Columbia SC 63: Our Story Matters, a documentary history initiative that chronicles the struggle for civil rights and social justice in Columbia. Presently, Donaldson is completing a monograph entitled “‘In Our Own Defense’: New Negro Intellectuals in the Jim Crow South.” The project critiques the varied and often competing rhetorical, ideological, and political strategies black intellectuals in Georgia employed as they battled white supremacy and negotiated African Americans’ precarious “place” in both the South and the nation. He is also conducting research on a biography of William Jefferson White, a political activist, Baptist minister and journalist, who founded Morehouse College in 1867.

James B. Johnson, Jr. and Elaine M. Johnson established The Ann Johnson Institute (AJI) for Science, Technology and Society at the University of South Carolina, in honor of their late daughter, Ann. The AJI was established in 2017 and is dedicated to building diverse communities for the study of technology, medicine and science in past and present societies.

James is a 1954 graduate of Vanderbilt as well as a 1959 University of Pennsylvania Wharton School MBA graduate. Elaine is a 1959 graduate of San Jose State University and did graduate study in library science at Kean University. After several years of active duty in the Navy, James worked in New York for more than thirty years at J.P. Morgan & Co. Elaine was a librarian at Kent Place School in Summit, New Jersey. After their respective retirements in 1993, the Johnsons moved to Statesboro, GA, where they currently reside. Their older daughter, Ann, taught history and philosophy at USC for a number of years before her death in 2016. Their younger daughter, Katherine Lewandowski, is a professor of geology at Eastern Illinois University. The Johnsons, along with Katherine, worked with former Dean Lacy Ford of USC’s College of Arts and Sciences to establish The Ann Johnson Institute (AJI) for the Study of Science, History and Society. Today, The AJI aims to fund interdisciplinary communities for research and pedagogy, as well as serve as a place “where members of the academic community, students, and those outside the University feel welcome, valued and at ease.”

A native of McDonough, Georgia, James L. Solomon, Jr. graduated high school at 16 and attended Morris Brown College in Sumter, South Carolina for a year. He left college to serve in the United States Air Force. Solomon was stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Korean War. After leaving the Air Force, Solomon re-enrolled at Morris College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He went on to earn his master’s degree in mathematics from Atlanta University in 1960.  

Solomon was a faculty member at Morris College from 1960 to 1973 and was eventually named the Vice President of Institutional Planning and Research for the college. While serving as a professor at Morris College, Solomon was one of three African Americans to desegregate the University of South Carolina on September 11, 1963. Solomon enrolled in the University of South Carolina’s graduate program in mathematics, becoming the department’s first African American student. 

Solomon became the first African American to serve in several key South Carolina state government positions under three governors, as a state agency director under Governor John West, Division Director at the Commission on Higher Education under Governor Richard Riley, and as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services under Riley and Governor Carroll Campbell. Solomon was elected to the Sumter District 17 School Board, becoming the first African American elected to public office in Sumter County, South Carolina since Reconstruction.

Solomon’s significant public service earned him the Order of the Palmetto, awarded by South Carolina Governors Richard Riley and Carroll Campbell. Solomon also received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Morris College and Doctor of Laws from Columbia College.  He was also elected to Richland One School Board, where he was the first African American to serve as chairman; and to Richland County Council. Solomon has served as president of the American Public Welfare Association and as Chairman of the Columbia Urban League Board. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of the South Carolina Institute on Poverty and Deprivation and the Palmetto Development Group.

In April 2019, the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences and the Mathematics Department unveiled a plaque in LeConte College honoring Solomon for his many contributions. 

A statue of Solomon, along with Robert Anderson and Henrie Monteith Treadwell, was unveiled at the University of South Carolina in April 2024, commemorating their successful efforts to desegregate the university.

Joe Blanchard is President and CEO of Blanchard Machinery Company, the Caterpillar dealership serving the state of South Carolina. During his tenure as President and Dealer Principal, Joe has seen the company grow from 240 employees to over 600 employees in 12 locations.

Joe has long been active in civic, economic and cultural affairs in the community.

Among his awards are the Columbia College Medallion Award, the Columbia Museum of Art’s John Richard Craft Leadership Award, the Central SC Outstanding Philanthropist Award and the Lexington County Ambassador for Economic Development. In 2015 Joe was inducted into the SC Business Hall of Fame and in 2019 he was named Business Leader of the Year by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

Joe graduated from Oxford College of Emory University as well as Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

He is married to Melissa Blanchard and has three children, Rozier, Boyd (Emilie) and Katherine (Davis Whittle), and one grandchild Harper. With all three children earning degrees from the University of South Carolina, Joe and Melissa had the pleasure of frequently hosting them and their friends for Sunday evening dinners.