Mike Couick
About eight years ago, electric cooperatives across the state began celebrating their 75th anniversaries with book and video projects highlighting their rich histories. On their own, these were wonderful stories about how local cooperatives “turned the lights on” for communities that weren’t being served by the existing power companies of the day and how co-ops empowered their rural communities for the following generations.
Collectively, electric cooperatives have another story to tell. It’s the story of a social movement that, in true cooperative spirit, changed South Carolina for the better.
This month, the University of South Carolina Press publishes Empowering Communities: How Electric Cooperatives Transformed Rural South Carolina, a book that not only tells the story of rural electrification across the Palmetto State but also the cooperatives’ efforts through the decades to enhance the quality of life for all South Carolinians.
The book was co-written by University of South Carolina history professor Dr. Lacy Ford, an award-winning author and former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Ford collaborated with our staff on this project, specifically Jared Bailey, whose contributions became so significant that Ford insisted he share credit on the cover.
We’ve been telling the moving stories of rural electrification for a long time, but Empowering Communities provides a deeper, more comprehensive account of the challenges South Carolina faced before and after the lights came on. As evidence of the much-repeated idiom that co-ops were “born in politics,” important parts of our story take place in and around the legislative chambers in Columbia and Washington, D.C., where crucial victories have been won thanks to the grassroots efforts and influence of cooperative members.
The book also shows how electric cooperatives shepherded economic progress in rural communities. In addition to modernizing farm and home life with new machinery and appliances, electric cooperatives became a critical part of the social fabric in rural South Carolina. They evolved to reflect the people they serve, becoming more diverse in their leadership and workforce. Electric cooperatives also set a new standard in their commitment to community, assisting their less fortunate neighbors and supporting local causes.
And while much of Empowering Communities details events of previous generations, the story of electric cooperatives in South Carolina would be egregiously incomplete without an account of recent events, like the overhaul of a local cooperative board that had violated its members’ trust, and the ongoing controversy over the future of Santee Cooper, the cooperatives’ largest single provider of electricity.
Our story continues today as co-ops are fulfilling their missions to provide safe, reliable services to their communities. Those services go beyond poles, wires and electricity to include home improvements that save energy, and even high-speed internet access.
In acknowledging the modern proverb “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” I hope we can use this account of our ongoing social movement as we face new challenges and transformations in our service to our communities. I hope you, as member-owners of your local cooperative, will take pride in your role in this story.
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Buy the book
Learn more and shop online at uscpress.com/Empowering-Communities or your favorite book retailer.