Photo by Mic Smith
Henry Darby
Age: 66.
Occupation(s): Principal of North Charleston High School; 17 years as a Charleston County councilman; associate at Walmart since August 2020.
Book smart: A collector of rare books, his library includes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? and a first edition of The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis.
Music to the ears: He’s been playing the piano for 40 years and loves to listen to the music of jazz composer Charlie Parker.
Latest honor: Awarded the Order of the Palmetto by Gov. Henry McMaster for his exemplary service to North Charleston students.
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Students at North Charleston High School often gaze at the wall of awards principal Henry Darby has amassed over the past 40 years. He’ll ask them what they believe is the greatest honor among the stack of plaques. They never pick the starched white shirt hanging in a display box.
“It reminds me of my humble beginnings,” says the North Charleston native. “It’s not the height that you reach, it’s the depth that you come from.”
The shirt came from cloth his mother found at a dump. Florence Darby took the fabric home, boiled it in a kettle and sewed the garment that her son wore to school two to three days a week for the next four years.
Darby knows poverty, but also the value of education and hard work. He made national headlines in January when his students discovered he was working an overnight job stocking shelves at a local Walmart in order to give the proceeds to needy students and their families.
“The first six weeks or so it was pretty rough,” he says of his job as a stocker. “Just standing, standing, standing. Muscles I hadn’t been using before. Feet swollen, knees swollen. But I’m not a quitter.”
Some of his friends, worried about his age, have urged him to slow down. He proudly points to the 40 pounds he’s lost in the first seven months and says he has no plans to stop.
“I know what it is to live in poverty, and it’s not a good feeling. I just do my best to help those I can,” he says. “Whenever I can’t teach or can’t help someone, I’m just gonna say, ‘Swing low, sweet chariot. You can carry me home now.’”