USC dedicates garden to honor first black students since Reconstruction: A garden adjacent the Osborne Administration Building on the University of South Carolina campus was dedicated Friday morning (April 11) in honor of the three students who integrated the university in 1963.
Situated along the university’s north wall, the Desegregation Commemorative Garden features a trinity of sculpted juniper topiaries, flowered beds, curving brick pathways and a granite monument etched with an original poem written by university poet Nikky Finney.
Surrounded by university officials, students, faculty, family and members of the community, Henrie Monteith (now Treadwell) and James L. Solomon reflected on their 50-year journey that began with Robert G. Anderson as they climbed the steps of Osborne to register for classes. The two (Anderson has since died) retraced those steps Sept. 11 to begin a yearlong commemoration culminating with the garden’s dedication and an evening of music and dance performance April 12.
