1127 Page Street
1127 Page StreetSite of Celia Dial Saxon Home
Among the first African Americans educated at the University of South Carolina during Reconstruction, Celia Dial Saxon (1857- 1935) became one of Columbia's most celebrated educators. Heavily engaged in civic improvements, Saxon helped to found the Fairwold Industrial School for Delinquent Negro Girls; the Wilkinson Orphanage for Negro Children; and the Phillis Wheatley YWCA, home to Columbia's first African-American public library. In 1929, Blossom Street School was renamed in her honor. Twenty-five years later, in 1954, Saxon was recognized again when the Columbia Housing Authority named a new 400-unit complex in the Edgewood neighborhood after her.
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Celia Dial Saxon, 1920s. From A True Likeness, The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts: 1920-1936. © The Estate of Richard Samuel Roberts, by permission of Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina
