Segregation in Columbia was more complicated than rigid boundaries. Throughout the twentieth century, the strict separation of races was enforced in the school system, healthcare system, churches and leisure organizations, but a more fluid system of segregation appeared in other sectors of society, including the commercial arena. The duplicate structures that whites built to enforce the “separate but equal” principle, the buildings that housed alternative businesses that blacks opened to serve their own communities, and the spaces that retain vestiges of separate facilities used to keep blacks away from whites all provide physical evidence for the various and complicated forms which segregation took.

This nomination, co-authored with several preservation advocates affiliated with the Public History Program at the University of South Carolina and approved in 2005, identified 21 existing properties already listed in the National Register of Historic Places and opened the door for at least two subsequent individual property nominations.

The full text of the nomination can be found at the SCDAH.