FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW) — Nobody disagrees with Mordecai C. Johnson’s legacy as a pioneering civil rights attorney, teacher and community leader.
Born in Effingham, Johnson in 1977 became the first Black person since Reconstruction to serve on Florence’s city council and was the first Black lawyer to work for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
“There’s not many Black lawyers in the state. We are a very underrepresented race in the profession, and the lawyer they say we all have to live up is Mordecai C. Johnson,” city council member Chaquez McCall said at a Monday council meeting…