Carolina South Carolina at a Glance State Profile - Gov. Hodges (D) - Sen. Thurmond (R) - Sen. Hollings (D) Presidential Politics Congressional Districting - 01 - Sanford (R) - 02 - Spence (R) - 03 - Graham (R) - 04 - DeMint (R) - 05 - Spratt Jr. (D) - 06 - Clyburn (D) Almanac 2000 Home States & Districts Elected Officials For district profiles and additional information on the elected officials of South Carolina, please use the pull-down menu above.

South Carolina was first settled by planters from Barbados, bringing with them a tropical plantation economy, which they transferred to the not quite tropical climate of the Carolina coastal lowlands. Here the flat Low Country and many islands are laced with sluggish-flowing rivers and swamps, and here the planters brought thousands of slaves directly from Africa. Colonial South Carolina was one of the richest parts of North America, with dazzling Georgian architecture in Charleston and classic plantation gardens; the planters built great irrigation systems and grew rice and cotton and the dye-plant indigo, all heavily in demand in Britain and elsewhere. And of course all this wealth was built on the slave labor of thousands of African-Americans, many of them still speaking their ancestral languages, or a patois mixing them with English. A majority of colonial South Carolinians were black slaves; so were most residents of the lowlands when the Civil War started with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, although by that time there were also many free blacks in Charleston, some of whom owned slaves themselves.

South Carolina's black heritage has left an imprint on American culture, and is still apparent in the lowlands today. The special accents and dialects of lowland blacks were long retained: Traces of Gullah and other accents still can be found on lowland islands and in the Charleston accent, which to outsiders seems often incomprehensible (how many C-SPAN watchers click on closed-caption text when Senator Hollings speaks?). The poverty that was the almost universal lot of lowland blacks after the Civil War has only in the last generation been alleviated, as development comes to the coast and the long cultural isolation of people here is dissipated. But many blacks who grew up here have long since left, leaving after high school graduation on the bus for New York, nicknamed ''the chicken-bone special'' because of the fried chicken their families packed for the journey.

The 6th Congressional District, created for 1992 to have a black majority, and modified slightly for 1994, includes very little of the coast, now mostly lined with affluent condominium communities; but it does include most of the geographic expanse of Low Country South Carolina. Its erose boundaries are designed to include the black central city neighborhoods of Charleston and Columbia but leave in the adjacent 1st and 2d districts their affluent white city and suburban areas. The 6th District includes much of Orangeburg, home of the historically black South Carolina State University, and Florence, at the center of the Pee Dee tobacco-growing country in eastern South Carolina.

The congressman from the 6th is James Clyburn, a Democrat elected in 1992. Clyburn grew up in Sumter, the son of a minister. In 1960 he was one of seven who organized the state's first sit-ins, at a five-and-dime store in the Orangeburg town square. He worked as a teacher, in government antipoverty programs, and on the staff of Governor John West. In 1974 he became state Human Affairs Commissioner, serving 18 years under Republican and Democratic governors; criticized for working for Republican Carroll Campbell, he got him to back the state's first fair housing act. Twice he ran for secretary of State, losing narrowly. Clyburn effectively won the 6th District seat in the 1992 Democratic primary, with 56% of the vote against four black opponents, all with serious claims for the nomination; the white incumbent in the old 6th District, Robin Tallon, at the last minute decided not to run. Each of the others had regional strengths. But Clyburn, well known statewide, ran first or second in each major center and piled up huge margins in others (88% in his home county of Sumter).

Clyburn is the first black to represent South Carolina in Congress since 1897. He has good working relationships with leading businessmen and Republicans. He has a generally liberal voting record, but supported the balanced budget amendment and term limits; he joined the moderate New Democrat Coalition at its inception in March 1997, the only black to do so. With a seat on the Transportation Committee, he has worked on local projects like airport funding and the South Carolina Heritage Corridor and has pushed for funds for restoring buildings at historically black colleges and universities. He won a fight with Strom Thurmond to get the new courthouse in Columbia named after Matthew Perry, South Carolina's first black federal judge. He sponsored a bill, before the ValuJet crash, to protect whistleblowers in the aviation industry. Against reformers in his own party, he has defended PACs as the voice of the little guy. When cigarette tax increases have been proposed, he has urged safeguards for tobacco farmers.

In the 105th Congress, Clyburn worked on the transportation bill, which increased South Carolina's share of federal monies from 71% of gas tax proceeds to at least 90%, a projected $175 million extra per year. In addition, he and Senator Ernest Hollings worked to insure funding for a new Cooper River bridge in Charleston. In the 1998 election he urged Democrats not to register voters, but to energize voters: good advice, since an active Democratic organization effort resulted in the election of Governor Jim Hodges and the re-election of the once seemingly endangered Hollings. In November 1998 Clyburn was unanimously chosen chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus; while he has a reputation for being conciliatory and non-confrontational, he says, ''When I need to be, I can be articulate. When I need to, I can get in your face. I have no problem doing that.'' In December 1998, he won a seat on the Appropriations Committee. His subcommittees are Energy and Water and Transportation; there he can secure funding for South Carolina projects authorized by the transportation bill he worked on in spring 1998.

Clyburn has been re-elected by increasing margins against the same opponent in 1994, 1996 and 1998. The district lines were challenged once again as racially gerrymandered, but the lawsuit was settled by Republicans unwilling to change the status quo in August 1997. In January 1999, Clyburn said, ''I've often given thought to serving in the U.S. Senate,'' then added, ''I like to manage things. I certainly wouldn't rule it out, if I thought it possible, running for governor.''

Cook's Call:
Safe. Clyburn sits in the only safe Democratic seat left in the state. He will be able to hold onto this seat for as long as he wants to.

Update: March 3, 2000
Less than eight months after winning a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, James Clyburn on August 4, 1999, volunteered to take a leave of absence from the panel to make room for New York's Michael Forbes, who had switched parties a few weeks earlier. Clyburn's terms were that he would reclaim his spot in the next Congress or as soon as a vacancy occurs with the same seniority, and that he would keep his committee staff.

House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt was much relieved by Clyburn's decision; the Democratic Caucus was struggling to find a way for Forbes to remain on the committee so it would not discourage other potential party-switchers. Clyburn said he had been offered no specific incentives to step off the committee, but that he made the move ''with the ultimate political payoff in mind.'' At the very least, this should give the Congressional Black Caucus, which Clyburn chairs, a new chit to spend when needed. ''I do this with an eye toward my future in the Congress and in the Caucus as well,'' said Clyburn. ''I'm not without ambition.''

The People:

• Pop. 1990: 581,452
• 50.8% rural; 12.3% age 65+;
• 37.1% White, 62.3% Black, 0.3% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.5% Hispanic origin; 0.1% Other.
• Households: 47.5% married couple families; 25.3% married couple fams. w. children; 29.7% college educ.; median household income: $19,189; per capita income: $8,631; median gross rent: $202; median house value: $48,500.

1996 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 113,096 (65%) Dole (R) 53,614 (31%) Perot (I) 5,525 (3%)

1992 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 118,085 (62%) Bush (R) 59,970 (31%) Perot (I) 12,292 (6%)