About Herb

Herb Frazier is a Charleston, South Carolina-based writer. He’s the special projects editor for the Charleston City Paper, and the former marketing director at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston. Before he joined Magnolia, Herb edited and reported for five daily newspapers in the South, including his hometown paper, The Post and Courier.

In 1990, the South Carolina Press Association named him Journalist of the Year. He has taught news writing as a visiting lecturer at Rhodes University in South Africa. He is a former Michigan Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina.

After leaving daily journalism in 2006, Herb led journalism workshops in Sierra Leone, Zambia, Ghana, Suriname, Guyana and The Gambia for the U.S. government and a Washington-based journalism foundation.

Herb’s international reporting includes West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall, humanitarian post-war relief efforts in Bosnia and Rwanda during its post-genocide recovery, social and political issues in Japan and South Korea and Cuba’s cultural ties with Florida and Lowcountry South Carolina.

He also reported on the conflict in Sierra Leone. Herb has written about the historical and cultural ties between West Africa and the Gullah Geechee people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.

Herb represented South Carolina on the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, created by the U.S. Congress in 2006. He also served as secretary of the Jazz Artists of Charleston, which supports the Charleston Jazz Orchestra.

He is the author of Behind God’s Back: Gullah Memories. He is a co-author of We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel with Marjory Wentworth and Dr. Bernard Powers Jr.

Herb also co-edited a collection of poems and essays titled Ukweli: (pronounced – you ̶ quail – lee) Searching for Healing Truth, South Carolina Writers and Poets Explore American Racism with the late Horace Mungin.

Herb’s latest book, Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery, is a collaboration with Joseph McGill, founder of the Slave Dwelling Project.

Herb’s forthcoming book, Crossing the Sea on a Sacred Song, tells the story of an African funeral song that links a Georgia family with a woman in Sierra Leone.

• Intern, The News and Courier
• Reporter, The Times-Picayune
• General Assignments reporter, The State
• Newberry Bureau Chief, The State
• Reporter/editor trainee, The State
• Assistant news editor, The State
• Copy editor, The Dallas Times Herald
• Zones editor, The Dallas Times Herald
• Editor, York Observer (South Carolina edition of Charlotte Observer)
• Copy editor, The News and Courier
• Reporter, The News and Courier
• Senior writer, The Post and Courier
• South Carolina Coastal Association of Black Journalists, founding President
• Lowcountry Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, member
• Avery Institute for African American History and Culture, member
• Senior Projects Editor, Charleston City Paper

• Former Michigan Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan
• South Carolina Press Association’s “Journalist of the Year” in 1990
• Hall of Fame for Region IV of the National Association of Black Journalists

• Allen University
• University of South Carolina