Patterson argued his points with a characteristic wit and Southern drawl
By Skylar Laird
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — Former South Carolina Sen. Kay Patterson, a stalwart fighter for civil rights during more than three decades at the Statehouse, died Friday, Dec. 13 at age 93.
Patterson, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1974, had been in hospice care for several months before dying in the early morning hours Friday, said Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, a Columbia Democrat who holds his former seat.
Patterson, a former chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, was among three Black legislators in the House who were elected in 1984 to the Senate. He remained in the upper chamber until his retirement in 2008, when then-Rep. John Scott, who died last year, won the seat.
“He’s been such a strong force in this community for so long,” Isaac Devine, who won a special election in January, said of Patterson. “To be in the seat he served in for so long is such a great honor for me.”
Over his 34-year Statehouse career, Patterson was known for bringing humor into debates, even as he scolded his fellow lawmakers.
He didn’t go to the podium often. But when he did, even senators outside the chamber scrambled back in to listen, said Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Hopkins, who called Patterson his mentor.
“When he got to the well, everybody got to their seat. Not only would we be informed and chastised, we’d be entertained,” said Jackson, who was first elected in 1992. “You wanted to hear what he had to say.”
Jackson said Patterson taught him how “not to lose your sanity while you’re here” — advice he’s tried to pass on to new senators since Patterson left the chamber.
“He was absolutely brilliant. He could read something and have it forever,” said Jackson, who shared an office suite with Patterson. “When he spoke, he knew exactly what he was talking about.”
Born in Darlington County, Patterson attended Claflin College until 1951, when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. He finished his undergraduate degree in social sciences at Allen University in 1956.
Former Gov. Jim Hodges, South Carolina’s last Democrat in the office, remembered Patterson as “funny, smart, shrewd and brave.”
“This former Marine drill sergeant was bigger than life,” Hodges, who worked with Patterson as a legislator before becoming governor, said in a statement.
Patterson first worked on Statehouse grounds while a student at Allen University, when he was a janitor in the Wade Hampton Building, he said during a 2004 interview with the University of South Carolina. At that time, in 1956, Black people weren’t allowed in the Statehouse, Patterson recalled.
He was making $100 a month cleaning the offices of the state attorney general and agriculture commissioner.
“And then one day I came back down here as a member of the House, and then one day in ’84 I came back sitting in the Senate as a senator,” Patterson said. “Now that’s a helluva long ways to come. That’s a long ways to come.”
It was Congressman Jim Clyburn who told Patterson he should run for Senate. At first, Patterson was reluctant, having just won a coveted spot on the House budget-writing committee. But after an hour-long conversation with Clyburn, Patterson changed his mind, he told the USC interviewer.
“So, Jim Clyburn is the reason I’m sitting up in here because I damn sure didn’t want to come on my own,” Patterson said in the interview.
In a statement Friday, Clyburn called Patterson “a trusted leader, a tireless champion for civil rights, and a treasured friend.”
During his years in the Senate, Patterson was always willing to make a stand, said friends and former colleagues.
When other senators shied away from talking about racism, Patterson stood up, said former Sen. John Land, D-Manning.
“He probably was one of the boldest and most unafraid senators that I ever served with,” said Land, who led Senate Democrats for eight years as majority leader, then for 12 years as minority leader until he retired in 2012. “He did not hold back in any way what he felt about the state of South Carolina and the treatment of Black people.”
But he remained friendly as he did so, Land said. “He was a kind soul to be around. He always had a smile on his face and a kind word to say, even to his adversaries.”
Patterson’s outspokenness was on full display when he pushed year after year for legislators to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse, said former Sen. John Matthews, who — like Patterson — was a former educator elected in 1974 to the House and 1984 to the Senate.
A 2000 law passed as a compromise took the flag off the Statehouse dome and put a square version on a 30-foot pole beside the Confederate Soldiers Monument on the Statehouse’s front lawn. There it remained until 2015, when the massacre of nine Black worshipers at a historic Charleston church prompted the Legislature to remove the flag from Statehouse grounds entirely.
“The legacy he will be leaving for all of us to follow is that you have to stand up for what you believe in,” said Matthews, D-Bowman, who retired from the Senate in 2020. “You have to fight for justice.”
Matthews and Patterson sat beside each other for 25 years in the Senate. They were so like-minded, they used a code to communicate how each was voting on a bill: A point to the nose for “no” and to the eye for “aye,” Matthews said.
“He was a dearly beloved friend,” said Matthews, who Patterson at one point credited with keeping him in the Senate for his final term. “He was very outspoken. He was committed to equal justice and equal rights.”
For 14 years, Patterson taught at W.A. Perry Middle School before being reassigned as school classrooms integrated. When the new school didn’t want to give him as much work, he took a job with the South Carolina Education Association, where he worked until retiring in 1985, he said during the USC interview.
Former Rep. I.S. Leevy Johnson first met Patterson when the late senator was attending Allen University and student teaching in Johnson’s eighth-grade class.
Even then, “he was very smart and very knowledgeable,” Johnson said. “He related well with people, and that was one of his attributes his whole life, that he had an appealing personality that impressed people.”
With his long experience as a teacher, improving public education was a major issue for Patterson, said former Sen. Nikki Setzler, a West Columbia Democrat who retired this year after 48 years in the chamber.
“He was passionate to improve the lives of not only the people in his district but the people of South Carolina,” Setzler said.
Even after he left the Senate, Patterson continued to mentor new Columbia-area legislators. Isaac Devine said she often called him for advice during her first couple months in the Senate this year, she said.
Former Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Columbia Democrat, did the same when he first won a seat in the Senate six years ago. He and Patterson had crossed paths when Harpootlian was the local solicitor and a council member, but Harpootlian wanted Patterson’s advice for serving in the Senate, he said.
“He said, very clearly, ‘Keep your sense of humor. Don’t take yourself too seriously, but at the same time, remember you’re an advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves,’” said Harpootlian, who is also the former state Democratic Party chairman.
Patterson was a lifetime member of the NAACP. He credited his “favorite uncle,” who was statewide president of the civil rights group, for his outspokenness.
“He was the one that inspired me to speak up and to speak out. That’s the way he was, and I wanted to be like my Uncle Sharver, and so I’ve always been outspoken,” Patterson said in 2004. “You should give respect to your elders and respect to your supervisors. I always respected them, but if something was on my mind, I was going to speak it, and if they did something wrong, I was going to tell them about it. I would always speak up and speak out.
“And that’s just my hallmark ever since I was a little child,” he said.
Patterson leaves behind a daughter and three grandchildren.
S.C. Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox contributed to this report.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau. S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
