Educator and civil rights leader Benjamin Mack (1916-1970) lived in the Ridgewood community from the late 1950s until his death in 1970. Mack was a graduate of Booker T. Washington H.S. and S.C. State Univ. He taught at Lower Richland H.S. in the 1940s, where he was known as “Professor B.J. Mack.” He married Gladys Hendrix of Batesburg, who operated a daycare center in Ridgewood. Mack also served as a Deacon at Ridgewood Baptist Church. In the 1960s, Mack served as the State Field Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in S.C. As part of his work with SCLC he taught courses in African American history for the Citizenship Education Program (CEP). With SCLC and CEP Mack worked with Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, and Septima Clark. He remained committed to SCLC’s mission of non-violent direct action and helped plan both the 1963 March on Washington and 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.  Septima Clark, a native of Charleston, served as the director of the Citizenship Education Program and once taught at the Saxon School, Howard School, and the Booker T. Washington High School.

As a civil rights champion and educator, Mack constantly stressed the link between historical knowledge and citizenship. In 1967, he remarked: “Negro history inspires us to do better. It gives us pride and dignity.”

Veteran journalist Listervelt Middleton, a former resident of Hyatt Park and host of the show For the People, remarked:

“Watch out for the kinds of information that goes into children’s minds. There is a battle going on for the minds of children. If they do not put into their minds a sense of commitment, of mission, then the children will wind up being of no use in the struggle for freedom.”

“Every black must see himself as an instrument of his ancestors or he has no purpose other than to get up and go to a job.”