Messages of faith and progress echoed from the edge of Gadsden’s Wharf on Thursday as community leaders paid tribute to the legacy of social justice left by the late Esau Jenkins, one of Charleston’s most influential civil rights figures.
The city of Charleston helped host the event to send off Jenkins’ family on a trip to Washington, D.C., for Saturday’s grand opening of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Dozens of members of the Jenkins family spanning three generations will travel together on a charter bus, symbolic of the countless bus trips that Jenkins organized for African-American communities across the Sea Islands and beyond during the Civil Rights Movement.