Library to finish late employee's work on slave records
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — With the creation of an index and a catalog of slave records at the Greenville County Library System, Rulinda Price helped make it easier for African Americans to trace their families’ history in South Carolina.
Price died in August at the age of 66, but the work she started in 2012 is carrying on and moving beyond Greenville into other parts of the Upstate.
Beverly James, executive director of the Greenville County Library System, said in an email that staff and volunteers in the Hughes Main Library’s South Carolina Room have been working on Price’s indexing project since her retirement in 2021 and they “plan to complete the work she started.”
Price was an archivist at the library before being diagnosed with cancer. As part of the slave-index project, “she personally reconnected families separated for generations,” said Knox White Jr., who feared that Price’s work would be stopped and disappear in the stacks.
“In sharing her story, it’s my highest hope that a proper tribute will inspire commitment to the continuation of Rulinda’s work, formal recognition of her legacy, patronage in support of its continuation,” White said in a text message.
Price’s daughter, Amanda Olson, is proud that her mother laid the framework for what the library staff and volunteers are doing.
“They’re continuing that work,” she said. “When we last spoke with them, the last bit of work our mother worked on was Spartanburg County. She completed Greenville. They are just now finishing Spartanburg County, and then they are going to move on to other counties.”
Price lived in Easley. A history buff, Price worked for the library system from August 2000 to July 2021 when cancer forced her into retirement.
She and her husband,...