Details the long and complex history of people of African descent at South Carolina's flagship university. Essays by twelve scholars explore a broad range of topics, from an examination of the lives of the enslaved men and women who lived and worked on the campus, to the famous 1963 desegregation of the school and its long aftermath.

Henrie Monteith Treadwell, research professor of community health and preventative medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and one of the three African American students who desegregated the university in 1963, provides an afterword.