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FEATURE ARTICLE: JAIME HARRISON
from HBCU Times Magazine
by HBCU Times
HARRISON
JAIME HARRISON BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS
HBCU Times 2020 Winter Issue | 19 HARRISON Democrat Jaime Harrison has always had HBCU’s and their survival and success on his mind. As a teenager in Orangeburg, South Carolina, he was often on the campus of South Carolina State University and Claflin University, both located in downtown Orangeburg. He was inspired by many professionals that went to both schools, especially when they would come to his public school to fulfill their student-teaching requirements. These students had a profound impact on him and offered a window into college life that he hadn’t seen before. “No one in my family had gone to college,” said Harrison. “The students I saw gave me a sense of the possibilities. They were role models and an inspiration to me.” Harrison is running against Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham for a Senate seat in 2020. The lack of federal funding for HBCU’s, retention for students, and understanding the importance of HBCU’s for low-income communities and firsttime college students like himself are high priority issues for his campaign. There are eight HBCU’s in South Carolina: South Carolina State University, Claflin University, Denmark Technical College, Voorhees College, Allen University, Benedict College, Morris College, and Clinton College. Harrison is currently touring all eight of the HBCU’s in South Carolina and meeting with their presidents. “HBCUs are a gateway to the middle class,” says Harrison by telephone. “Many HBCU’s don’t have the endowments that predominantly white schools have that give them the flexibility to do new things and invest in their buildings and new programs. I want to make sure federal funding is going to these institutions.” Harrison says South Carolina State doesn’t get the same attention for federal funding as its sister state institutions Clemson University and University of South Carolina. He wants to make sure federal funds reach HBCUs like South Carolina State that are research universities. He and the presidents of South Carolina HBCUs have been talking about a potential partnership with HBCU’s and Ivy League schools to help to boost HBCU endowments. Addressing student loan debt is another big issue for his campaign. Harrison and his wife combined came out of undergrad and law school with 250K worth of loan debt. He says he will work to make colleges affordable and work to end the student loan crisis in this country. Harrison has a soft spot for HBCU’s in part because he was only able to attend college because of the help of an HBCU graduate. On April 2, 1994, Harrison went to the mailbox early in the morning to see if he had received any mail from the colleges he applied to. Thanks to his grandparents and his mother who understood that education was the gateway to change his life, he had always been an exceptional student. His mother, a teenage mother, always bought him comic books to read - Avengers, Spiderman - and Harrison devoured them. By second grade he had skipped three reading levels. “Reading those comic books was really how I learned to read because I was a slow reader at first,” he remembers. That day at the mailbox he saw a fat envelope, which meant it wasn’t a rejection letter. He started screaming when he opened it as his grandmother came running to the door telling him he was going to wake all the neighbors. His grandmother had an 8th grade education because she had to leave school to pick cotton and eventually worked in the textile industry. His grandfather stopped school in the 4th grade to work in a dairy and work construction. His mother dropped out of high school to give birth to him and went back to school to get her GED. The letter inside the envelope said that Harrison had been accepted to Yale University. “I was screaming, I got in, I got in! I was jumping up and down in the middle of the street,” Harrison remembers. “My grandma
had no idea what I was talking about. She knew I was happy, so she was happy. She knew it was a blessing for me to go to school. It wouldn’t have mattered where I got into school, it just meant an opportunity that would change my life.”
But there was a catch. When he received his financial aid letter he was about $2500 short of what he needed to enroll. No one in his family had enough credit to get a loan. When Harrison met a distinguished graduate of Claflin University, his life would change drastically. He’d met Middleton through the mayor of Orangeburg when Harrison was awarded the honor of being the mayor of his middle school. Middleton was a Tuskegee airman, one of the first African Americans to get elected to the State House, post Reconstruction and one of the first African Americans to get a Coldwell Banker real estate term in the nation. Middleton gave Harrison, then a middle school kid, his card and said anytime you need help, just call me.
The day he received his financial aid package Harrison called him and went to his office. Middleton told him, “I’m going to give you the money you need for school and I am going to give you a little extra money for your pockets and I’m going to buy you a computer.” The trade-off was Harrison worked for Middleton that summer before school started.
“I would drive around and run errands for him. In the end I was able to go to school because of him,” said Harrison.
Now Harrison is running against Lindsey Graham in a state which is considered a conservative, Republican state. He’s using a strategy that is unique and different from other campaigns. He says he’s focused on helping people right now. “You hear the rhetoric: ‘Wait until I get elected and you’ll see what I do,’ But I know in some of our communities they’ve heard that for generations. There have been a series of broken promises. They want to see action,” said Harrison.
Harrison created a program entitled, “Harrison Helps.” The program partners with community organizations and leaders, identifying challenges in the communities and works to come up with solutions. One event involved a partnership with the Boys and Girls Club in his hometown in Orangeburg. They were able to raise $7000 for school supplies to give to parents.
Harrison Helps plans on conducting homeownership workshops, FAFSA workshops for first generation college students and workshops on resume building and job interview skills.
Ultimately, Harrison says, its obvious that South Carolina is looking for change. “We are getting Republicans showing up to our events who are frustrated with the way the country is going,” Harrison said.
Harrison wants to be the person to bring about that change.
“Never let anyone say that you’re not good enough, or it’s not your time. My life’s work is about proving the doubters and the pessimists wrong. Because I know how much we can do together.
It is our time.”
