From ‘Redneck Shop’ to racial reconciliation
UofSC alum works to replace hate with hope
Posted on: February 25, 2021; Updated on: February 25, 2021
It was the spring of 2018 and Regan Freeman was studying in one of the cubicles deep inside Thomas Cooper Library when he stumbled upon a
60 Minutes story. Oprah Winfrey and attorney Bryan Stevenson were touring the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, a monument to the thousands of African Americans who were lynched in the 70 years following the Civil War.
Freeman watched the screen as Winfrey and Stevenson paused and looked up at one of the 800 weathered steel monuments, each representing a county in the United States
Former White Supremacist Store and Klan Meeting Space is Being Turned Into a Community Center to Promote Healing
Jan 27, 2021
One of the surest ways to keep history from repeating itself is to shine a light in its darkest corners, and that’s exactly what this 67-year-old reverend has set out to do in the town of Laurens, South Carolina.
Reverend David Kennedy outside the Echo Theater
In 2019, Rev. David Kennedy and local historian Regan Freeman established the Echo Foundation. Its mission: transforming a symbol of racial inequality into an opportunity for reconciliation and education. Their target: the Echo Theater which, at one time, was a whites-only hall and later a storefront, museum, and recruitment center dedicated to glorifying white supremacy.
Black Preacher To Turn World s Only Klan Museum Into A Racial Healing Community Center
The recently founded Echo Project has raised more $375,000 to renovate and the former KKK meeting place and white supremacist museum.
January 18, 2021 at 4:39 pm
Two South Carolina men have formed an organization to renovate a once well-established place of segregation and white supremacy into a place for racial healing and remembrance.
Officially forming the Echo Project in 2019, Laurens, South Carolina, residents Regan Freeman and the Rev. David Kennedy have so far raised more than $375,000 to transform the historic Echo Theatre, later the Redneck Shop and once known as the World s Only Klan Museum, into a community center that will recognize its racist history while also promoting the fight against racial injustices, according to CNN.
A former White supremacist store and Ku Klux Klan meeting space is being turned into a community center to promote healing
A South Carolina preacher and local resident are turning what once was a Ku Klux Klan meeting place into a community center dedicated to educating and fighting against racial injustice.
Deep in Laurens stands the historic Echo Theater, perched in between diners and cafes bustling with customers and ’50s music that can be heard from the street.
But that building carries a history much darker than the cheerful life that surrounds it.
In 1996, the once segregated movie theater became home to the Redneck Shop, a White supremacist store that sold White nationalist and neo-Nazi paraphernalia, Klans robes and Confederate memorabilia up until its forced closure in 2012.
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