Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The Legislative Black Caucus held their annual corporate roundtable banquet Wednesday night. At the dinner, the inaugural “Clementa C. Pinckney” award was presented to former Senator Kay Patterson. the award was in honor for his many years of public service.
Representative John King explains why Patterson was the obvious choice. He tells News 19, "He in Clementa Pinckney resembled so much in their philosophies and what they believed in and just helping the common man."
Patterson says, "Im proud to get it and proud to be associated with Clementa a nice clean quiet guy and I'm here; I am loud and roudy and raising hell all the time."
So whether it was a fight for fair wage or fair education the two men were on the same side even though they had different methods of getting the needed votes. But it was the fight over the Confederate Flag at the state house that will forever tie the two Senators together. Patterson started that fight back in 1983 sponsoring a bill to take it down. Patterson tells News 19 how the two worked together at the State House. "It took people like me to get the attention of the fellas. And then people like Clementa and John Wesley Matthews could come along and close the deal. I couldn't close the deal; hell I had em mad."
But one fight that Patterson started wasn't finished until July 10 2015, after Senator Pinckney was killed during the Mother Emanual AME church shooting, less than a month before. So Patterson says, even in his death, Pinckney still brought South Carolinians together. And the two Allen University Graduates will be forever connected; one starting the fight, and one ending it.