St. Helena’s Penn Center hires new leader. Marching orders: preserve history, raise money

The Historic Penn Center, the former school for freed slaves on St. Helena Island dedicated to promoting Gullah-Geechee history and culture, has hired a new executive director after a long search.

Dr. Robert L Adams Jr. will succeed Interim Executive Director Bernie Wright. Wright was hired after interim director Marion Burns, the Penn Board President, died in July 2021.

Adams will start work July 1.

His hiring comes at a critical time in Penn’s 161-year-old history, said Deloris Pringle, chairwoman of the Penn Center Board of Trustees.

Penn is in the process of trying to preserve its historic buildings and also increasing funding to develop its programs.

Designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1974, today the not-for-profit works in the areas of education, community development and social justice.

“With this appointment, Penn Center will implement impactful initiatives that address community well-being, social, economic, and environmental challenges facing Gullah Geechee communities today,” Pringle said in a news release.

Adams, a Bangor, Maine native, was raised in military institutions across the South and earned a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Florida and a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked extensively in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

He previously served as the senior vice president of Programs at the National Education Association Foundation in Washington, DC, overseeing the Foundation’s grant programs. He also served as executive-on-loan/Interim Chief Operating Officer at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta.

His career in nonprofit management, philanthropy, fund development and global networking makes him an ideal choice as Penn’s executive director, Pringle said.

Adams said he honored to leaded the Penn Center, which he described as a “hallowed” institution and a “living laboratory of Black freedom.”

Historian John Hope Franklin once described Penn Center as “the most significant African American organization in the country.” It was established in 1862 by a group of churches and abolitionists from Pennsylvania as a school to educate newly freed slaves. It was named after William Penn, a Quaker who founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The 50-acre campus is located on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The Civil Rights-era leader used the campus as a retreat in the 1960s.