At the time, Partin and Jenkins voted to remove the commissioner from his position. While the three other voting members — Sox, Tim James, and Phil Carter — denounced the comments, they voted against removing the commissioner without a deeper investigation.

The commissioner later stepped down from his position.

‘Progress. Change.’

Smith was one of the first names recommended to Thomas when he began his search for volunteers on his advisory board.

“She’s well known and well respected,” Thomas said.

Smith’s own grandfather, Julius Felder, was a reverend and community activist in Cayce.

“Grandaddy was a force in the neighborhood,” Smith said. As a child, she remembers holding clipboards for him as they worked their way through rural areas, helping people register to vote. Now, she works to carry on his legacy.

With Smith’s help, Thomas brought six more volunteers onto the committee.

They held their first meeting in January 2020 and by February, Smith had collected enough stories to make a new social media post for all 29 days of Black History Month.

She laughs now, thinking back on it. Smith says they didn’t realize until after the month was over how much work that would take. The following year, they decided to post three times a week, instead.

Each post highlights a community member, who they refer to as an “African American Legend.”

“We call them our legends, but they are really the everyday people that we all grew up with here,” Smith says. “People that were doing things and never realized their impact on the community, because it’s just what they were doing.”

The committee started by calling people they knew, but now Smith said people reach out to her with stories they’d like spotlighted — and they’re not turning anyone away.