Run to support “Call My Name” during Black History Month

A 5K run has been organized to support “Call My Name,” the ongoing research project that researches, documents and shares the stories of African Americans in Clemson University history.

The run is scheduled for Sunday, February 19 from 8:00-10:00 a.m. Runners will gather in the Carillon Garden before running a route that guides them past sites of significance for Black history at Clemson, including Fort Hill and Woodland Cemetery.

The “Call My Name” project was started by Rhondda Robinson Thomas, the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson. When she arrived on campus in 2007 and learned that the institution was built on land that was the former Fort Hill Plantation of John C. Calhoun, she began to unearth the stories of seven generations of Black people at Clemson, beginning with those who were enslaved.

Her work spawned the book “Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community” and led to transformative research into Clemson’s campus history, including the discovery of about 600 unmarked graves at the Woodland Cemetery and African American Burial Ground.

“The run is a great opportunity not only for the Clemson community and the public to learn about the history of places on campus that we walk past every day,” Thomas said, “but also to financially support ‘Call My Name.’

Registration for the “Call My Name” 5K can be completed at the run’s official website.  Those who register by January 29 will receive a commemorative race t-shirt. All participants will receive a pamphlet with information about significant sites along the route and will be invited to take a guided Call My Name walking tour of the historic campus and attend an African American cultural heritage program featuring music, poetry and more immediately after the race.

More information about Thomas and her team’s ongoing research is available at www.callmyname.org.