George Washington Murray’s industrious ingenuity offers South Carolina an example for meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
By Said L. Sewell, Ph.D.
Morris College
What can a South Carolina inventor born in 1853 teach us about navigating a world transformed by artificial intelligence, automation and ubiquitous technology?
Perhaps the mindset we need most.
George Washington Murray was born near Rembert in Sumter County on September 22, 1853. Born enslaved, he became an educator, farmer, inventor, entrepreneur and U.S. Congressman. He obtained eight patents for agricultural innovations and, in 1894, used the floor of Congress to call national attention to inventions patented by African Americans.
Murray saw practical rural needs and devised solutions. His industrious ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit turned knowledge, resourcefulness and persistence into action.
His example belongs not only to our past. It speaks to South Carolina’s future.
Technology is now everywhere. But technology alone will not determine whether our communities prosper. What matters is what people learn to do with it.
South Carolina needs people who see problems as opportunities, turn knowledge into practical solutions and transform good ideas into enterprises that strengthen their communities. Murray demonstrated that innovation can emerge from places like Rembert and Sumter just as surely as anywhere else.
At Morris College, that philosophy is reflected in the Morris Mindset™ and The Morris Movement, our strategic vision for advancing the College through growth, innovation and impact.
And we are putting that mindset to work.
With the support of U.S. Congressman James E. Clyburn, another son of Sumter and a distant relative of Murray, Morris College recently secured $1.25 million in federal funding for a Small Business Entrepreneur Incubator Center. The investment will help create a new platform for entrepreneurship and economic opportunity in our community.
We have also partnered with Denmark Technical College to create more seamless educational pathways between our institutions, including opportunities in cybersecurity, esports and criminal justice.
These initiatives share a simple idea: give people the knowledge, tools and opportunity to create something useful.
That is why I believe September 22 should become George Washington Murray Innovation Day, beginning here in Sumter and ultimately observed across South Carolina.
Not simply a day of remembrance. A day of doing.
Each September 22, let us challenge ourselves to ask a distinctly Murray-like question:
What can I make better?
George Washington Murray’s legacy deserves to be remembered. More importantly, his example deserves to be repeated.
In a rapidly changing world, South Carolina needs more of the industrious ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit and determination that enabled Murray to turn problems into possibilities.
Let us honor the past by inspiring a new mindset for the future.
Said L. Sewell, Ph.D., CFRM is the President and CEO of Morris College.