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Speaker Series - The Lost Stories of Black Charleston - Damon L. Fordham
Join us for our next Speaker Series event, The Lost Stories of Black Charleston, at the Magnolia Carriage House on February 11, 2026, from 6–7 PM!
Damon Lamar Fordham was born in Spartanburg, SC and raised in Mt. Pleasant, SC. He received his Master’s Degree in history from the College of Charleston and the Citadel, and his undergraduate degrees at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He is currently an adjunct professor of History at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. He was a weekly columnist for the Charleston Coastal Times from 1994 to 1998, as well as the author of Black Folktales and Chronicles of South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2025), The 1895 Segregation Fight in South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2022), Voices of Black South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2009), and True Stories of Black South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2008)
Research and articles by Mr. Fordham appear in the books Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition by Joyce Coakley, South of Main by Beatrice Hill and Brenda Lee, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African-American Folklore for the University of Missouri Press, Cecil Williams and Sonny DuBose’s Orangeburg 1968, and The Malcolm X Encyclopedia for the University of Southern Mississippi Press in 2001. He has also spoken at schools such as The University of Memphis in 1998, The G.L. Roberts School near Toronto, Canada in 1999, and The University of California at Berkeley in 2013. Additionally, he appeared on numerous radio and television programs in the United States, Canada, Japan, and England. He has also appeared on NBC News in 2022 and a New York Times article on September 14, 2023.
He conducts a local Black History walking tour and received a citation form the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2022 for his work in education, and the Key to the City to Spartanburg in 2001. He was also on four educational \visits to Egypt, Ghana Senegal, Togo. and Gambia, West Africa, where he toured the Slave Port at Goree Island and lectured to a class of students at the University of The Gambia in Banjul.
Join us for our next Speaker Series event, The Lost Stories of Black Charleston, at the Magnolia Carriage House on February 11, 2026, from 6–7 PM!
Damon Lamar Fordham was born in Spartanburg, SC and raised in Mt. Pleasant, SC. He received his Master’s Degree in history from the College of Charleston and the Citadel, and his undergraduate degrees at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He is currently an adjunct professor of History at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. He was a weekly columnist for the Charleston Coastal Times from 1994 to 1998, as well as the author of Black Folktales and Chronicles of South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2025), The 1895 Segregation Fight in South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2022), Voices of Black South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2009), and True Stories of Black South Carolina (Charleston: History Press, 2008)
Research and articles by Mr. Fordham appear in the books Sweetgrass Baskets and the Gullah Tradition by Joyce Coakley, South of Main by Beatrice Hill and Brenda Lee, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African-American Folklore for the University of Missouri Press, Cecil Williams and Sonny DuBose’s Orangeburg 1968, and The Malcolm X Encyclopedia for the University of Southern Mississippi Press in 2001. He has also spoken at schools such as The University of Memphis in 1998, The G.L. Roberts School near Toronto, Canada in 1999, and The University of California at Berkeley in 2013. Additionally, he appeared on numerous radio and television programs in the United States, Canada, Japan, and England. He has also appeared on NBC News in 2022 and a New York Times article on September 14, 2023.
He conducts a local Black History walking tour and received a citation form the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2022 for his work in education, and the Key to the City to Spartanburg in 2001. He was also on four educational \visits to Egypt, Ghana Senegal, Togo. and Gambia, West Africa, where he toured the Slave Port at Goree Island and lectured to a class of students at the University of The Gambia in Banjul.