Letter to the editor: Thank you to all helping to tear down hospital

I wish to thank the City of Sumter for investing in the demolition of the Community Hospital, which was previously located on Broad/Hospital Circle. As a hospital, this facility served the segregated Sumter community during the enforcement of the Jim Crow laws. At the end of segregation, when the 1964 Civil Rights Act took root, the building became a residential care facility, still serving Sumter. Then when COVID punched the world and knocked it off balance, a necessary decision was made to close.

Sadly, its closure invited the inception of threat to its surrounding residents - threats in both physical and health safety. However, a comforting local government employee, John Macloskie, and a committed newspaper journalist, Deidre Currin, added to the already communicated concerns of Ms. Lottie Spencer, who brought to light her personal and neighborhood concerns of the building's threat, that once again, played a historic role, to both city and county council officials.

Thank you Ms. Spencer, thank you Mr. Macloskie, thank you Ms. Currin and thank you Sumter city government. Because of you, the threat is now removed, and we now wait for the installation of its already approved historic marker.

MICHELLE ROSS

Sumter