Category: Science

All agree that Charleston is most commonly known as the “Holy City,” but explanations differ as to why. Some say it is because people of many religions settled here, motivated partially by its religious tolerance. The more prevalent explanation is that the skyline is punctuated by churches. We are agnostic on the origin of the name, but we are more knowledgeable today about the city thanks to…

Bulldog Historic Walking Tour

By Ingrid Cuero

The Southern Legislative Conference sponsored a “Bulldog Walking History Tour” for us today, and for two hours on a (hot) Sunday morning, we learned about the past and present of The Holy City.

As a way of warning, we learned that Charleston has “tourism police,” whose primary job is to keep tourists from obstructing the city’s transportation. Who knew?

Our first stop was the Charleston City Market, which was built on land donated by Charles C. Pinckney and other landowners . Interestingly, Pinckney was a founding father, was nominated once for VP, and twice for President (under the Federalist Party). He had conditions on the donation of this land, one of which was that it must be used as a City Market–and it has been for the past 235 years!

Many people confuse the City Market with the Old Slave Mart in Charleston, but these are not the same buildings and, in fact, the City Market has never been used for the sale, transport, or storage of slaves.

Charleston is architecturally intriguing. It is not blessed with an abundance of stone, so the “stone buildings” you see are probably brick that has been scored to appear to be stone. On the other hand, stones were imported from England to make the cobblestone streets. “Imported” may be a bit pretentious, in that they were actually used for ballast on the ships and then discarded in Charleston Bay when cargo was loaded. The discarded stones were then used for the roads.

Perhaps the most famous of Charleston’s homes are on “Rainbow Row,” 13 homes marked by pastel colors. Many myths exist to explain the origin of this colorful street, but the most likely account is that the original preservationists wanted a Caribbean look, and subsequent buyers/restorers followed suit.

Interestingly, a tour guide told me that Oprah Winfrey owned one of the homes, although I was not able to verify that. I did find, however, that she stayed at Charleston Place, which is the site of our conference.

We also passed the Robert Smalls historical marker…

…which was especially interesting to us because, on the way to Charleston, Professor Yawn drove us to Robert Small’s house in Beaufort, SC and told us a bit about him.

Smalls is best known for leading one of the Civil War’s greatest intelligence victories, while also securing his freedom and the freedom of fellow slaves (and their enslaved families). Following the war, he returned to South Carolina, and he purchased the home of his former “master.” He lived there for the remainder of his life with his wife and children, and he let his former master’s widow, Margaret Johnson-McKee continue to live there. According to our tour guide, Smalls actually never told Johnson-McKee that she no longer owned the house, sparing her embarrassment. Smalls was one of the founders of the Republican Party in South Carolina and was elected to both the SC state legislature and the US Congress.

In reading more about Smalls, I was particularly moved by one of his speeches, in which he asserted, “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

Also of interest was the Charleston intersection known as the “Four Corners of Law.” Each of the street corners hosts a legal institution of sorts: (1) Charleston City Hall (municipal law), (2) the County Courthouse and former provincial capital (state/county law), (3) the Post Office and Courthouse (federal law), and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church (God’s law).

This lesson illuminated both the literal and figurative intersections of government and social institutions, as well as the importance of working together to achieve results–which, also, incidentally, is the theme of the Southern Legislative Conference!

LEAP Makes a SPLASH at Family Night!

Jessica Cuevas

LEAP Ambassadors have attended many SLCs over the years, and they always enjoy “family night.” This year, the host city, Charleston, selected South Carolina Aquarium as the venue for this evening, and the results were FUNtastic!

Welcoming us was the Blue Dogs Band…

…and the aroma of great food. The songs were good, and the menu featured pulled pork, chicken, beans, house salad, bread rolls, poppy-seed cole slaw, various sauces, and gouda mac ‘n cheese. Amazingly, while we ate we had a chance to gaze at the “Great Ocean Tank,” the deepest tank in North America at 42 feet. We were all grateful no seafood was on the menu.

Nearby was the Bald Eagle exhibit, and we had a chance to see–and pose with–a bald eagle.

But when we heard there was face painting on the second floor, we joined other five-year olds in line. Continuing with our theme of the aquarium, Olivia adorned her face with mermaid; Michelle, a shark; Morgan, an (oddly) smiling crab; and I got a sea turtle.

Ingrid, not getting the gist of the evening, got a flower, making her a flower child.

With the attention span of goldfish (2 seconds), and being naturally drawn to interactive museum features that do not require literacy, we saw the “touch and feed center” and immediately raced to it. We were able to touch starfish, sea urchins, hermit crabs, baby sand-tiger sharks, and sting rays!

At least one LEAP Ambassador was too frightened to touch the animals. The LEAP Code of Discretion prevents us from identifying this individual, but we would just like to apologize for Olivia’s absence from the preceding gallery.

We learned that Charleston is home to three different turtles: (1) Green Sea Turtle, (2) Kemp’s Ridley, and (3) the Loggerhead Turtle (South Carolina State Turtle). They vary in color and size, and there was a couple in the Recovery Theater. The Recovery Theater – Sea Turtle Care Center is a portion of the aquarium that features an x-ray room, surgical rooms, many turtles, and interactive exhibits about the 13 patients in residence: 2 Loggerheads, 5 Green Sea Turtles, and 6 Kemp’s Ridleys.

The turtles often get hurt due to the pollution in the oceans from humans. In fact, it is estimated that by “2050, oceans are projected to contain more plastic than fish!” The most common reasons for ill or injured turtles are due to (1) fishhooks, (2) fishing lines, (3) broken bones, (4) pneumonia, and (5) osteomyelitis (bone infection). 

Although it was disheartening to read about the stories of the different turtles, most of which were named after cheese (Mozzarella, Parmesan, etc.), I was glad to see they were recovering. Soon they might be able to swim among the other 385 sea turtles that have been released from this center. 

Caretta, a loggerhead sea turtle, is the only turtle that will always call the aquarium home, due to her high dependency on humans impeding her from surviving in the ocean.

To nobody’s surprise, turtles were the highlight of my evening. However, this aquarium had many types of sea creatures to enjoy and learn about, such as; fish, jellyfish, sharks, lobsters, shrimp, and much more.

As Take Me Home, Country Road was echoing throughout the aquarium, and with children and adults dancing, we “o-fish-ally” called this turtle-tastic evening a night.