Lucille S. Whipper, iconic stateswoman, educator and Charleston civic pillar, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Marjorie Amos-Frazier Pacesetter Award for lasting civic and humanitarian contributions. Montez C. Martin, Jr., award selection chairman, made the announcement today after his 9 member committee chose Whipper in a meeting at the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center, a nationally recognized repository of African American history that Whipper helped to establish in 1985, the same year she was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. Whipper served in the state legislature from 1986-1996.
The award, named in honor of the late Marjorie Amos-Frazier (1926-2010), the first woman, African-American and non-legislator elected to the South Carolina Public Service Commission in 1980, will be presented to Whipper at the Blue Jamboree on October 26 at The Jenkins Institute in North Charleston. The award and the Blue Jamboree are sponsored by West Ashley Democrats. For more information visit: www.scbluejamboree.com.
As members of the Avery Normal School class of 1944, Whipper and her classmates sought to integrate the College of Charleston. As Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Human Relations at the College of Charleston in 1972, Whipper became the first African-American administrator and developed the College’s first affirmative action plan.
In the late sixties, Whipper and others organized Operation Catch-Up, a tutorial program for high school students that was the forerunner of the Upward Bound programs found today on college campuses nationwide. She was elected to Charleston’s District 20 Constituent School Board from 1978-82.
Whipper is the recipient of numerous awards including Honorary Doctorates of Humane Letters from Morris College, (1989), the University of Charleston (1992) and the College of Charleston (2008). She is a former member of the Morris College Board of Trustees and the Benedict College Board of Trustees. In 1995, Whipper was inducted into the SC Black Hall of Fame and awarded the Order of the Palmetto in 1996.
Currently a member of Morris Street Baptist Church, Whipper has served her denomination as a faculty member of the National Congress of Christian Education, and was Past President of the Woman’s Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina.