Ace Mace Chip and Charge

Demonstration action being planned for Saturday, April 5 near the Daniel Island office of US Representative Nancy Mace. The demonstration will include delegations from a coalition of human rights and economic justice organizations from the 1st Congressional District and Lowcountry including those committed to healthcare, reproductive rights, civil rights, the living wage, education, affordable housing and transit. The demonstration will prove local opposition to the devastating cuts planned to these programs in the Trump/Musk budget which Mace has voted for in a preliminary bill.

The Organizers, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. and Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. plan to seek a permit for the demonstration from the City of Charleston Police Department. No violence or destruction of property is planned as part of this peaceful demonstration. Participants will be required to sign up online prior to participating. An overflow standby area will be established, and the demonstration will be three hours long, conducted in two 90 minute shifts. An after event is being planned. Posts regarding this action will include hashtag #chsresist (https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/chsresist?__eep__=6&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZW4Odn18Cxst26wq46WuQWwxKhkyXql2YFND-Psf7YTL2Lmlz8Tn3ch1ACaMC5jC6ZYaqnMX5riyzVSugbcnUNj-_PN07gTNdnymTcBOTIzGkJ0KsUw3PeLsQUF6TFBF9RQYq1XzlqIiUa8-mh-CTq3&__tn__=q)

The event has two shifts: senior Social Justice Advocates will serve the first shift from 1 pm to 2:30; Charleston's new generation of Social Justice Advocates, led by Allen Morris, take over for 2:30 to 4:00 pm. Everyone will gather at Commonhouse Aleworks in N. Charleston afterwards to decompress and socialize. Please plan to carpool to Daniel Island. The City is attempting to eleminate all parking. Details are not known. Some parking in supporters driveways on Daniel Island is being coordianted. The shortest locations to take Lyft or Uber from are in Mt. Pleasant, along Stuart Engalls Drive (Near Wando Crossing Shopping Center) which is served by the CARTA #40 bus. No public tranist serves Danial Island on the weekend. There may be a ferry running to serve the tennis tournament form Downtown Charleston.

Education advocates will be asked to wear red; healthcare & reproductive rights advocates, blue; Transit advocates green; housing advocates brown; labor advocates yellow (reflective vests) and gender identity advocates pridewear.

This demonstration is scheduled to take place during the finals of the Credit One Charleston Open, the largest women’s only tennis tournament in North America. It will be conducted on public property in accordance with the rights and privileges reserved to citizens under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and with the supervision and help of a team of Experience, SC Licensed Attorneys trained in Civil Rights and Social Justice Advocacy issues, led by William J. Hamilton, III, Lowcountry Attorney, activist and writer.

The name of the Demo comes from Tennis Nomenclature. An Ace is a shot the opposing player can't return and chip and charge is an aggressive move where a player hits the ball and charges towards the net. We plan to be strong in our support of social justice.

This demonstration is scheduled to commemorate the 158th anniversary of a demonstration in downtown Charleston where African Americans and their supporters confronted a city guard (the police department of that era) composed of former Confederate soldiers at the four corners of law. This confrontation was a part of the two month long successful struggle to desegregate Charleston’s then new, horse drawn streetcars. During the demonstration (also called a riot by some observers) the US Army of Occupation turned out a company of Black Federal soldiers to protect the African Americans and preserve order. No one was killed during the tense confrontation, which took place in the first weeks of Federally enforced reconstruction. Mary Bowers, the Rosa Parks of Charleston would go on to help lead the struggle, demanding the right to ride on Meeting street two weeks later and ultimately winning it for all Charlestonians in early May.

You can read a detailed account of this and other related events in spring of 1867 in Voices of Black South Carolina by Damon L. Fordham, pp. 29-33, History Press, 2009. For more information contact

William J. Hamilton, III,Ex. Dir. Best Friends of Lowocuntry Transit, Inc. & Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. [email protected], (843) 870-5299Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social