Established in 1869 and growing to become one of Spartanburg’s most prominent largely Black neighborhoods, the Back of the College – so named by its residents for its location behind Wofford College – has a rich, complex and critically important history to the Upstate of South Carolina. The neighborhood was founded by formerly enslaved and free Black people just after the Civil War, became home to more than 2300 residents during its peak in the 1950s, and housed one of the two Black high schools in Spartanburg during segregation. Through a combination of opportunistic and planned acquisition of property over a period of 50 years, Wofford eventually expanded into the neighborhood and razed every structure, with the exception of the old Cumming Street School building, recently designated by City Council as a Historic Preservation Site, and Trinity AME church, which now serves as a studio arts center for Wofford students.
The Back of the College Project is a collaborative, community-based effort to tell the history of the neighborhood. This website exhibits the neighborhood’s history through its collection of US Census and city directory data, interviews with former residents, photographs and memorabilia, and maps and other documents. The Project is a work in progress – as new US Census and city directory data become available, and as users add their photographs, memorabilia, residential history, and stories, the database and website will grow.
The Find Your Home database allows you to search the entire residential history of former residents, and you’re able to listen to interviews of former residents as they describe what it was like to grow up in the neighborhood or attend Cumming Street School.
Check out the companion book to this website: NORTH OF MAIN: SPARTANBURG’S HISTORIC BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS OF NORTH DEAN STREET, GAS BOTTOM AND BACK OF THE COLLEGE (Hub City Press, 2024)
We consider this website to be a community project and welcome content that helps to develop the neighborhood’s history. Please feel free to contact us if you have anything to add!